We invite you to the scientific seminar "Poisoned Land. The Life of Local Polish and Jewish Communities in the Shadow of the Treblinka I and Treblinka II Camps," led by Michał Kowalski (Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute). Michał Kowalski's doctoral dissertation entitled "Poisoned Land," written under the supervision of Bożena Szaynok, Professor at the University of Wrocław, between 2020–2025, is an in-depth analysis of the impact of Treblinka I and Treblinka II on the community and space of the Sokołów and Węgrów counties. The author shows how the operation of these camps during World War II led to profound social, moral, and material destruction of the people living in this area. During the seminar, the author will present the main conclusions related to the project and discuss its sources. He will also present selected, previously unpublished archival materials and photographs. The seminar will be held in a hybrid format – it will be broadcast on Facebook and made available on YouTube. *** Michał Kowalski – graduate of the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Gdańsk. He completed postgraduate Polish–Jewish studies at the Institute of Literature of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Doctoral student at the Doctoral College of History, Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences, University of Wrocław. He is preparing his doctorate "Poisoned Land. The Life of Local Polish and Jewish Communities in the Shadow of the Treblinka I and Treblinka II Camps" under the supervision of Dr. hab. Bożena Szaynok, Professor at UWr. He is a scholarship holder of, among others, the Claims Conference Against Germany, the GEOP program implemented by the Polin Museum, EHRI, the "Holocaust Witnesses" project, and the project "Socio-political Radicalization of the Polish Province during the Great Depression and its Consequences. The Case of Greater Poland in a Comparative Perspective (1929-1939)." He specializes in issues related to the pre-war Polish province and the period of World War II in this area. *** Photo: View of the ruins of the Jewish district in Węgrów. Spring 1943, Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance. *** The seminar is organized as part of EHRI-PL and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage for the task "Ongoing Activities of the Polish National Node EHRI-PL – EHRI-ERIC Consortium implemented by the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute [ŻIH] for 2025–2027 together with national partners."
