PolishBoard of Directors
Luc Albinski
Luc Albinski, a graduate of the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and of INSEAD in Fontainebleau, is the executive chairman of a fund management firm, Vantage Capital, based in Johannesburg and Sofia, which has a strong focus on investing in education (currently rolling out forty Maple Bear schools in Poland) and health care opportunities (with several hospitals in Morocco operating under the CIM Santé brand) in Africa and Central Europe. Luc’s projects in Poland have included assisting with the translation and editing of a book by Maria Ciesielska entitled “The Doctors of the Warsaw Ghetto” and the producing of a documentary entitled “Nobody Told Me” which was screened at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, the Galicia Jewish Museum in Cracow and at the Szalom Asz Festival in Kutno.
Jakub Nowakowski
Jakub Nowakowski is currently the director of the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre. Jakub was born and raised in Kazimierz, the former Jewish district of Kraków. In 2007 he graduated from the Department of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University, where he wrote a thesis on Jewish resistance in Kraków during the Second World War. In his 13 years as director of the Galicia Jewish Museum, Jakub established the Museum as a major institution, both nationally and internationally. He has co-authored many publications and curated various exhibitions which have been mounted in Poland and internationally.
Council
Avital “Tali” Helen Nates
Tali Nates, founder, and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre is a historian who has lectured internationally on Holocaust education, genocide prevention, reconciliation, and human rights. She has presented at numerous conferences and seminars including at the United Nations in New York in 2016. Tali has been involved in the creation and production of dozens of documentary films, curated exhibitions, published articles and contributed chapters to many books. Tali has won many awards including the Kia Community Service Award (South Africa, 2015), the Gratias Agit Award (2020, Czech Republic), the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (2021) and the Goethe Medal (2022, Germany). Born to a family of Holocaust survivors, her father and uncle were saved by Oskar Schindler.
Tahel Rachel Goldsmith
Tahel Rachel Goldsmith is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Chicago. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology and an M.A. in Cultural Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research areas are modern East-Central European, Jewish history and memory, and museum studies. Tahel’s dissertation investigates the history of Auschwitz-Birkenau’s conservation after 1945. She has interned at the Conservation Laboratories of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and at the Collections Department at The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.
Aimee Mica Goldsmith
Aimee Mica Goldsmith is a graduate of the University of Witwatersrand where she obtained an honours degree in Dramatic Arts majoring in performance and directing. Her play ‘Sarajevo’ which she wrote and stars in has been performed internationally including at a symposium in Ottawa, Canada, titled “21st Century Reflections on Sexual Violence in Wars and it’s Transgenerational and Transnational Impact.”. She is the SA representative of UK organisation ‘Remembering Srebrenica’ and has worked at the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre as well as at the Galicia Jewish Museum.