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In the fourth interview of the ‘Heritage Voices’ series, Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska talks to Dr Mechtilda Rössler, who has been involved with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre since its inception in 1992. In this interview, the expert shares her insights on the processes of inscribing sites on the World Heritage List, and discusses the challenges and concerns related to its development and heritage protection. The most worrying issues seem to be the politicisation of nominations and the ulterior motives behind them. Should the focus be on managing sites that are already on the List better, or on expanding the List with new sites?

EC1 Łódź hosted the unveiling ceremony for the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award plaque, one of the most prestigious awards in the field of cultural heritage protection in Europe! Prof. Jacek Purchla, Vice-President of Europa Nostra and Chairman of the Europa Nostra Awards Jury, and Agata Wąsowska-Pawlik, a member of the Europa Nostra Board, attended the event.

The popularity of the Schindler Factory – a branch of the Museum of Kraków – which opened 15 years ago, has since led to the creation of a new museum at the nearby KL Plaszow concentration camp. How can the two museums complement each other, and how is it that the KL Plaszow Holocaust memorial site went for so long without being properly commemorated? Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska meets with Monika Bednarek, director of the KL Plaszow Museum, as well as Bartosz Heksel, manager of the Schindler Factory branch of the Museum of Kraków.

We’re creating an online platform called the Heritage Sound Register to collect the sounds of Central and Eastern European heritage. The project covers natural and cultural landscapes, including industrial ones. Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków is running the initiative, which is being curated by John Beauchamp.

What challenges does the cultural heritage sector in Belarus face? Are private initiatives in this area possible? How does politics influence heritage? What conservation projects are currently being implemented there? The third conversation in the “Heritage Voices” series was conducted by Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska with Dr Stsiapan Stureika, a distinguished researcher of cultural heritage, chair of the Belarusian National Committee of ICOMOS, and a lecturer at the European Humanities University in Vilnius – a Belarusian university in exile.

For this episode of Heritage Hour we are in Nowa Huta – the industrialised, socialist-realist city established in the late 1940s, acting as a proletarian counterweight to the seemingly snobbish and intellectual city of Kraków. Over seven decades later, and Nowa Huta’s sprawling steelworks have all but disappeared, the district is one of the greenest in Kraków, and new challenges await. While the city is on the Polish historical monuments register (designated as a pomnik historii), it now has a chance to promote itself further by applying to UNESCO. But is such a heritage label what Nowa Huta really wants, or needs?

Let me tell you a story… The Europa Nostra Kraków Heritage Hub launches the Narrative Heritage Network, an line platform for the exchange of ideas in heritage storytelling. On 16 December 2025 the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków launched the Narrative Heritage Network, an online platform which aims to bring together heritage practitioners in the broad field of storytelling.

The tradition of basketry in Poland has been inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The official announcement took place on 10 December 2025, during a UNESCO conference in New Delhi.

In this episode of Holistic Heritage, we open our ears to the sounds of heritage. Is sound heritage? Sound is inherent to every building, every object. A wind which whistles its way through a church door, the bustle of people on a market square, the echo inside a church or even farm machinery harvesting the year’s crops…

We’re launching a new initiative! We warmly invite you to the inaugural meeting of the Narrative Heritage Network on Tuesday, 16 December at 12:00 CET, to be held online. In creating this new discussion platform, we aim to unite people involved in storytelling on a daily basis—museum staff, non-governmental organisations and cultural institutions, artists, and outreach professionals—to exchange experiences, engage in discussions on current challenges and share best practices.

Applications for the European Heritage Hub are open until 19th December for best local practices that support the green, social, and digital transformation in cultural heritage! The programme is targeted at municipal and regional institutions, with the most inspiring projects being promoted and having the opportunity to participate in a specially organised study visit and online workshops. We warmly encourage you to apply!

The third and final workshop session on audio applications in heritage took place on a wet and windy Monday, 17 November 2025. Participants of the Kraków Heritage Forum were trained in the art of audio editing and basic mixing, working with sounds that each group had recorded during the previous session.