FRED SCHWARTZ, founder of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, was an inspiring entrepreneur and philanthropist who dedicated his life to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims and preventing future genocides. He died in New York at the age of 85.

After a moving visit to Oświęcim in 1991, Schwartz established the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation in 1995. In 1998, after years of dialogue with the Polish government and the Polish Jewish community, the Hevrah Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue was the first Jewish communal property returned to the Jewish community under a law passed by the Polish Parliament. The Jewish community of Bielsko-Biała, which reclaimed the synagogue, in turn donated it to the foundation which renovated and opened it and the adjacent Kornreich family house as the Auschwitz Jewish Center in 2000. A pioneer of Polish–Jewish reconciliation and the preservation of Jewish heritage in Poland, Schwartz created several related non-profit organizations. Of the Auschwitz Jewish Center, he once said: ‘The most important thing is it's an expression of life, it is vitality, the fact that ashes can rise up and really be re-formed as life again.’

Schwartz's innovative approach inspired initiatives within his organizations that fostered cross-cultural exchange through programmes,training courses, and seminars around the world. His tireless commitment to making the world a better place has already had an unmistakable impact on thousands of young people, which will endure for many generations.

The Auschwitz Jewish Center, located in Oświęcim, Poland, is part of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. In addition to the Hevrah Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, its facilities include the Jewish Museum, with its exhibition about the Jewish history of Oświęcim, ‘Oshpitzin’; the Education Center, which was the first institution in Poland to teach about the Holocaust and about hatred today; and Café Bergson, which is located in the historic home of the last Jewish resident of Oświęcim, Szymon Kluger.