Organizer: Polish Institute for Evidence Based Medicine 

The Award commemorates Zdzisław Jan Ryn, MD, PhD, the initiator and expert consultant of the Medical Review Auschwitz project.

The Award is a statuette designed and made by Karol Gąsienica Szostak, an eminent Polish sculptor.

The Award is given in two categories: 

• For unique contribution to the Medical Review Auschwitz project—awarded by the Organizer. 
• For the best lecture at the international conference Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire—awarded by a jury appointed by the Organizer. Jury members are announced at the opening of the conference. To be eligible for the Award, a speaker (a) cannot be a jury member of the conference; (b) cannot have received the Award at a past edition of the conference; (c) cannot have received the Award in the first category at the current edition of the conference. 

Award Ceremony 

The Award Ceremony takes place at the end of the international conference Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire. 

The Z.J. Ryn Award statuette 

By sculptor Karol Gąsienica Szostak: 

“Judging by mere appearances, the question of the boundaries of freedom has been already answered. You can undertake any action as long as it does not harm others. However, actual experience, coming both from the present and the past, demonstrates a dramatically different state of relationships between human beings. Is placing a person in extreme situations and checking the boundaries under inhumane duress inevitable? I would like to believe that we are virtuous and capable of sacrifice enough to make new discoveries in every area of life without being forced to do so. This is what countless lives of those who take the side of goodness demonstrate. I would like sculptures which carry a warning, like this one, to become unnecessary in the future.” 

About the Artist 

Karol Gąsienica Szostak is a multidisciplinary artist creating in the fields of sculpture, painting, drawing and artistic action. He graduated (1988) and earned a doctoral degree (2008) from the Academy of Fine Arts, Faculty of Sculpture in Warsaw, Poland. In 2014, he completed his postdoctoral habilitation degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Since 2009, he has been a lecturer and then an associate professor at the State University for Applied Sciences in Nowy Sącz. 

A three-time recipient of the Scholarship of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Szostak has exhibited his works in Poland and internationally, including the Netherlands, France, Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Luxemburg and the United States, at 49 individual exhibitions. His works are featured in a number of private and public collections, such as the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxemburg, the Stutfene Foundation in the Netherlands, the Tatra Museum in Zakopane and the District Museum in Bielsko-Biała.