Adam Koperkiewicz, advisor to the director of the Museum of the Second World War

Adam Koperkiewicz, the long-time director of the Historical Museum of the City of Gdansk, historian, winner of many scholarships on museology, has become an adviser to the director of the Museum of the Second World War.Adam Koperkiewicz will advise director Karol Nawrocki on the evaluation of the main exhibition and the museum’s international contacts.

Adam Koperkiewicz is a graduate of the Higher Pedagogical School and the University of Gdansk and the author of over 40 publications in professional journals on the museum and maritime history subjects as well as two books: Solen, and Ship Clocks.

In 1966-1976 he worked as a teacher. From 1973, he was a long-time employee of the Central Maritime Museum in Gdansk, where he initiated and implemented the only collection in Poland of copies of old navigational instruments, a collection of XVI-XVII century carriages for guns raised from the wreck of the Solena (together with E. Śledź); foreign exhibitions about the Solena in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm and Polish underwater research in the Gulf of Gdansk in Kotka, Finland.

From 1989 to 2015, he managed the Historical Museum of the City of Gdansk. He was responsible for the overall functioning of a multi-department museum employing 130 staff with the highest professional and academic qualifications, the organisation of construction, conservation and adaptation for museum and exhibition purposes: Artus Court, Uphagen House, Amber Museum, Wisłoujście Fortress, Clock Tower Museum, Wyżynna Gate, Zamorz Towers, and the organisation of over 100 permanent and temporary exhibitions at the museum and beyond, including foreign exhibitions. He has cooperated in the organisation and conduct of numerous foreign and domestic visits at the state and government level in museum branches.

He has been awarded many Polish and foreign decorations, including The Silver and Gold Cross of Merit, the Gold Decoration for the Care of Monuments, the Badge of Merit for the Association of Veterans of the Republic of Poland and Former Political Prisoners, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the Bronze Medal for Merit for Culture Gloria Artis, and the French National Bachelor Order of Merit. In 2004, he received the City of Gdansk Splendor Gedanensis Award in the field of culture for organising the exhibition Gdansk for the Republic. In 2009, he received the Medal of Saint Wojciech, awarded by the Council of the City of Gdansk. In 2015, he was awarded the Estonian Order of Pro Terra Marianum.