(ANSA) - PESCARA, 25 OTT - The prestigious international Warsaw-based "Witness to History" prize speaks Italian: the National Institute for Memory (IPN) has awarded it to the essayist Marco Patricelli for his research activity and dissemination of modern and contemporary Polish history. The awardees are six in all after a committee has evaluated the works published in the last two years.

Patricelli boasts a consolidated bibliographical experience on the history of the country of the white eagle, with the publication of essays translated into several languages such as 'Il volontario/The volunteer" (published in Italy by Laterza), the first biography in Europe of Captain Witold Pilecki, who chose to be imprisoned in Auschwitz to witness to the world what happened in the Nazi lager. Furthermore, "Morire per Danzica/Dying for Danzig" (Bellona), essay on the crisis of 1939 that led to the Second World War, and several contributions on the 2nd Army Corps of General Anders, in which the irregular Italian formation of the Maiella Brigade was militating, the subject of a book which Rusconi has just published. Thus, Patricelli is already a "Worthy Person" of Poland and was awarded the Officer's Cross by the President of the Republic for cultural merit. The award ceremony will take place on Wednesday, October 27, in the magnificent setting of the Royal Museum of Warsaw, the summer residence of the Polish King Stanislaus Augustus. (ANSA).