In one of the newly renovated rooms of the lower floor of the house at Mahalla, a new reading room was arranged. Researchers, students and scholarship holders wishing to peruse the Research Center’s book collection gained a quiet and comfortable place to work. The reading room is dedicated to the memory of Krystyna Polaczek, a long-term director of the PCMA Warsaw office, who passed away in September 2015.
Krystyna Polaczek belonged to those people, for whom nothing was impossible. One of Professor Kazimierz Michałowski’s students, she was also his right hand even before she finished her M.A. at the University of Warsaw. Upon graduation, she started to work as Michałowski’s assistant in the National Museum in Warsaw. She also worked with him in Egypt — in Alexandria and Deir el-Bahari, and she was one of the first guests of the newly instigated Station of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw in Cairo.
As the first administrative director of the PCMA Warsaw office she was the one who built from scratch the whole administration and modus operandi of the Centre and its missions. During the 40 years of her work she invested all her time and indefatigable energy in the smooth functioning of this institution, but no matter how much work she had at her hands, she was always ready to help anyone involved in the Centre’s work.
