Anna Czajka is a world-renowned preservation specialist at the Archive Conservation Laboratory of the Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych [Central Archives of Historical Records, or AGAD]. Czajka is a longtime colleague of the PMC as well. She has been a crucial participant in the 10+ year collaboration between the PMC and the Head Office of the Polish National Archives (NDAP), whereby archivists and conservation experts come annually to Los Angeles to work on-site and help us organize, catalog and preserve the great variety of unique materials in the PMC’s Archival Collections.
For the 2025 installment of this fruitful NDAP/PMC collaboration, Czajka is currently in residence at the Polish Music Center for the next 3 weeks. She is focused on the PMC’s Zygmunt and Luisa Stojowski Collection, which contains extremely fragile paper items related to the stellar career of pianist, composer and pedagogue Zygmunt Stojowski. As a paper preservation specialist, Czajka provides critical assistance in stabilizing these items to prepare them for eventual scanning into the Dianne and Tad Taube Polish Music Center Digital Archives.
Shortly before coming to L.A. this summer, Czajka was honored by the Polish Institute for Heritage Security (IBD) and the General Conservator of Monuments at a June 2nd ceremony at the Waweł Royal Castle in Kraków. There she was presented with the “KOBEDIAN – a safe monument” Award by the Director of IBD, Dr. Katarzyna Góralczyk (pictured above). This award is unique in that it is the first initiative to acknowledge actions taken to improve the protection of cultural heritage in Poland, especially in the event of armed conflict or crisis situation. The beautiful statuettes received by the awardees were handcrafted by a Polish artist and thus each one is slightly different that the others—a perfect representation of the impressive skills and unique perspectives that Anna Czajka brings to the work she does, wherever around the world she may be. Congratulations!