Obama awards medal of freedom to Albright, Dylan, Karski

President Barack Obama awards a 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom to musician Bob Dylan in Washington on May 29. Photo by REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

President Obama awarded Medals of Freedom to Jan Karski, Madeleine Albright and Bob Dylan, among other recipients.

Obama this year awarded 13 Medals of Freedom. The ceremony took place Tuesday at the White House. Israeli President Shimon Peres will receive the medal in a separate event next month.

Karski, who died in 2000, was a Polish resistance fighter who was among the first to document the Nazi genocide against European Jews.

Albright, the former secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, learned in 1997 from a reporter that her parents hid her Jewishness from her.

She recently wrote a book about her family’s Jewish heritage, “Prague Winter,” in which she discusses 25 relatives who perished during the Holocaust.

Dylan, who changed his last name from Zimmerman, transformed rock and folk music in the 1960s.