For Catholic Pole Bogdan Bialek, a courageous teacher, charismatic public intellectual, and trained psychologist, anti-Semitism is a sin—and this conviction is the animating force of his life. Since arriving in Kielce, Poland, in the 1970s, Bialek has unwaveringly challenged his neighbors to confront the truth about the darkest moment in their past: In 1946, 40 Holocaust survivors seeking shelter in a downtown building were murdered by townspeople. Communist authorities suppressed the story, and when Bogdan arrived three decades later, conflict over the pogrom was still a festering wound within the community. Since then, this tenacious man has made it his life’s work both to persuade people to embrace their past and to reconnect the city with the international Jewish community. A remarkable portrait.

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