Julien Bryan posthumously awarded ‘Custodian of National Memory’
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
04.06.2012 12:08
American journalist Julien Bryan who documented the defense of Warsaw against Nazi bombings in September 1939, is among the recipients of the ‘Custodian of National Memory’ title awarded by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN).
At a ceremony in Warsaw, the award was collected on behalf of Julien Bryan, who died in 1974, by his son Sam.
His son recalled that his father’s 10-minute film about the siege of Warsaw, which showed the heroism of the Polish people, had an audience of 40 million during the war and won an Oscar nomination in the documentary film category in 1941.
Bryan’s photographs of besieged Warsaw were published in December 1939 on the covers of American Look and Life magazines.
After the war, during his visits in 1946, 1958 and 1974, Bryan made shots of the same places and of some of the people featured on his war-time photos.
The ‘Custodian of National Memory’ is an honorary title awarded to institutions, civic organizations and individual persons for their contribution to the preservation of memory of Poland’s history from the outbreak of World War Two in 1939 to the collapse of communism five decades later. (mk/pg)
SIEGE - Warsaw 1939 report by Julien Bryan