Janusz Kurtyka
Janusz Marek Kurtyka ( born August 13, 1960 in Krakow, † 10 April 2010 Smolensk, Russia) was a Polish historian and second president of the Institute of National Remembrance.
Kurtyka was founded in 2005 as the successor to Leon kieres president of the Institute of National Remembrance.
On April 10, 2010 Kurtyka belonged to a Polish delegation headed by President Lech Kaczyński, who was to travel on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the Katyn massacre to the memorial to Russia. However, in a plane crash of the delegation near the military airfield Smolensk - North he came together with other high-ranking representatives of Poland died.
Posthumously Kurtyka was awarded on April 16, 2010, the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta ( Krzyż Wielki Orderu Odrodzenia Polski ).