A year-long impasse which had threatened the functioning of Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Polin) has ended after a compromise candidate was appointed as its new director.
Poland’s Ministry of Culture, the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute (JHI) of Poland, and the Mayor of Warsaw agreed on Friday that Zygmunt Stepinski’s position as acting director would be made permanent.
Mr Stepinski “has many years of experience in the field of management, including in the field of cultural institutions, he enjoys the trust of the team and the museum’s donors and Jewish communities in Poland and abroad,” JHI chair Piotr Wislicki and Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski said in a statement.
Under the terms of the contract approved by the Ministry of Culture, Mr Stepinski will lead the museum for three years.
Dariusz Stola, Polin’s former director, paved the way for Mr Stepinski’s appointment when he announced last week that he would be giving up his role at the museum.
Mr Stola had not been at work since February last year, and Culture Minister Piotr Gliński had in effect vetoed the recommendation of a competition organised by his ministry, JHI, and the Mayor of Warsaw to reappoint him.
Prof Stola had come into conflict with Poland’s far-right populist government during his tenure at Polin.
He protested the notorious law passed in February 2018 that critics said could prevent historians from pointing out individual Poles had collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
A March 2018 exhibition in Polin that drew attention to the communist regime’s antisemitic campaign of 1968 and reflected on contemporary antisemitism in Poland also drew the government’s ire.
In a statement, Mr Stola said he was aware of the “damage” being caused to the museum by the current impasse, adding he wished to act in Polin’s “best interest” by stepping aside.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, chief curator of Polin’s core exhibition, praised Mr Stola as “brilliant”, added he had endured a “humiliating year with his characteristic integrity and dignity”.
Mr Stępiński’s term as acting director had been due to conclude February 22.
Mr Wiślicki and Mr Trzaskowski had warned that the failure to appoint a permanent figurehead posed “a real and serious threat to the functioning of Polin”.
Supporters of Mr Stola, Mr Wiślicki and Mr Trzaskowski said their decision to accept a compromise candidate in the form of Mr Stępiński was made “for the sake of the Museum and of the Polish national interests which suffer due to the ongoing controversies over the nomination for the post of director of one of the leading institutions of culture in Poland.”
