US philanthropist honoured in Krakow

Taube was awarded the distinction for his efforts to revitalise Jewish life and culture in Poland.

He also set up Judaic studies in Poland and promoted international research into the history of Polish Jews.

Upon receiving his honorary doctorate, Taube said that a visit to Kraków was a return to a place of utmost importance for his family. His father received a doctorate in law from the city's Jagiellonian University in 1928.

Taube's family was forced to flee Poland shortly before the outbreak of WWII. They eventually settled in the US. All of Taube's relatives who remained in Kraków died in the Holocaust.

“I treat the honorary doctorate as a great distinction and I free honoured and grateful to the Jagiellonian University for this mark of recognition”, Taube said.

Born in 1931, Taube played a key role in setting up the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. He is among the benefactors of Galicia Jewish Museum and the Festival of Jewish Culture in Kraków.

In 2008, he founded the annual Irena Sendler Award in memory of Irena Sendler, the Polish woman who saved several hundred Jewish children from the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. (mk/vb)