WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — Polish scholar Barbara Engelking received this year’s Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Award.

The award ceremony took place on Wednesday at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

The award founded by Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski is given by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York to authors of publications about Jewish life in Poland and the contribution of Jews to Polish culture. The cash prize is $5000.

Engelking is a psychologist and sociologist and the head of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She examines the history of the Warsaw Ghetto, German-occupied Warsaw and the Holocaust.

Her best known book, written with Prof. Jacek Leociak, is “Warsaw Ghetto: A guide to the perished city”. She is also a co-author of the Holocaust gallery in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.