Vera Michalski

in 2018 she opened a hotel in Warsaw, the Raffles Hotel Europejski.

In 2010, she received the Lilas de l'éditrice award. Vera Michalski was awarded prestigious awards during her career, including the Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1995), the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic, the Meritorious for Polish Culture (2011) and the Polish "Bene Merito" honorary distinction (2012).

In the autumn of 2007, Vera Michalski announced the creation of the Jan Michalski Foundation in Montricher, Switzerland. This foundation acquired a former summer camp and converted it into a centre welcoming writers. Several of them can stay simultaneously and for different lengths of time, never to exceed one year, however. Plans are underway to add “an exhibit space, an auditorium for concerts, symposiums, lectures or screenings, and a library”. The foundation awards certain writers with grants and from time to time underwrites certain publishing projects.

In 1986, Vera Michalski created Les Éditions Noir sur Blanc in Montricher with her husband, Jan Michalski. The idea was to publish writers –essentially of Slavic origins– and to offer fiction (novels, short stories, plays and poetry) as well as non-fiction (essays, documents, eye-witness accounts, personal journal and memoires) bearing witness to critical periods in the history of countries such as Poland and Russia.

Through her publishing business, Vera Michalski aims to provide a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures. She and her husband began working in this area in 1986, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when cultural exchanges were rather difficult. She speaks five languages fluently (French, German, English, Spanish and Polish) and some Russian.

In 1983, she married a Polish man named Jan Michalski (1953-2002), whom she met when they were both students at the University of Geneva.

Vera Michalski-Hoffmann (born 5 November 1954, in Basel) is a Swiss billionaire philanthropist, significant shareholder of Roche Holding and publisher. She is the president of several publishing houses in Switzerland, France and Poland, grouped together in a holding company, Libella SA, based in Lausanne. She founded the Jan Michalski Foundation in Montricher.

Vera studied at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva where she began working on her thesis entitled “Le phénomène des compagnons de route du communisme en France, de 1928 à 1939” (The phenomenon of Communism's road companions in France from 1928 to 1939”). However, she decided to interrupt her doctorate studies to focus on publishing.

Until the age of 16, Vera Hoffmann (of Swiss and Austrian origines) lived in Camargue, at the Tour du Valat research facility, 28 km from Arles. At that time, the centre's activities included an agricultural dimension and its electricity was supplied by a generator. Her father, Luc Hoffmann (1923–2016), founded the centre. Equipped with a PhD in zoology, he dedicated much of his time, thoughts and funds to preserving and protecting nature. In 1961, he and Peter Scott, son of the famous South Pole explorer, founded the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Now supported by the family's MAVA Foundation, this research centre has become an important international hub for the conservation and study of Mediterranean wetlands. The Foundation, which owns nearly 2,500 hectares of wetlands in the Camargue region, is responsible for protecting the area.

Vera's mother, Daria Razumovsky, was the descendant of Russian immigrants who fled their homeland during the Russian Revolution. The story of her grandmother's childhood (from 1914 to 1919) was published and translated in 1990. In 2004, the diary kept by Vera's mother and two aunts was also published.