Belgian Corinne Evens was awarded the annual Prize of the 21st Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, Poland, for her active support to this event which attracts thousands of visitors every year.
The award was presented by Janusz Makuch, Director of the Festival and Sigmund A. Rolat, Honorary Chairman of the Friends of the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival.
Corinne Evens is co-founder and President of the Evens Foundation that supports the festival in the framework of its declared objective "to initiate, develop and support projects that encourage citizens and states to live together harmoniously in a peaceful Europe."
Every year, in the midst of the Polish summer heat, the festival takes its place in Kazimierz, the city’s historical Jewish quarter. It has become one of the largest cultural Jewish events in the world.
A variety of Jewish related cultural and folklore events take place for nine days.
During the festival, visitors from all over the world and many local Poles got a chance to sample Jewish and Israeli related art exhibitions, theatre, music and Hazzanut concerts, film screenings, lectures, Yiddish and Hebrew lessons, Klezmer and Hassidic dance workshops, as well as tours to Kazimierz’s historical synagogues and Jewish cemeteries and monuments.
Today, only a few hundred Jews live in Krakow while before the Holocaust a quarter of the city’s population was Jewish.