Jadwiga Dąbrowska-Belońska

How to cite: Kłodziński, S. Jadwiga Dąbrowska-Belońska. Kapera, M., trans. Medical Review – Auschwitz. December 14, 2020. Originally published in Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim. 1974: 232–237.

Author

Stanisław Kłodzinski, MD, 1918–1990, lung specialist, Department of Pneumology, Academy of Medicine in Kraków. Co-editor of Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim. Former prisoner of the Auschwitz‑Birkenau concentration camp, prisoner No. 20019. Wikipedia article in English

In comparison with the biographies of Polish doctors who worked during World War II, very few biographies of nurses who rendered distinguished service in the same period have been published. Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim has not avoided the same pitfall: although the biographies of nurses have become one of our running topics, they still take a minor position with respect to other articles. Yet we know that in 1939–1945 nurses played various significant roles, both on the front, in concentration camps and jails, and in everyday activities on territories under German occupation (Masłowski, 1970: 277–281). Nurses’ wartime memoires and recollections, published either as single articles or books, mainly discuss their participation in combat (see Gierczak, or Matusowa-“Kwiatkowska”), while their heroism in the face of widespread hardship and their invaluable, though unobtrusive efforts, still need more publicity.1 For instance, readers would appreciate more accounts describing the work of Polish nurses in Nazi German jails and concentration camps. Of course, if such accounts, including biographies, are not collected and published, we cannot expect to have really comprehensive studies or even general overviews of subjects like the prisoners’ hospitals in Majdanek, Ravensbrück, or Birkenau, that is in those places where women were imprisoned.

Theoretically speaking, we could write hundreds of wartime nurses’ biographies, because so many of them deserve to be remembered. In practice, we are not going to reach such a high figure because of the passage of time and the methodological difficulties. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that the biographies which are published include elements that are representative and typical of the contribution of many Polish nurses to the resistance movement and its military operations as well as to the everyday existence of Polish people under German occupation.

Many nurses’ obituaries are so laconic that they stand in stark contrast to their subjects’ rich biographies and personal integrity. However, more often than not, even those nurses who rendered distinguished service during World War II do not get even an obituary notice in the papers. They are soon forgotten, and new generations of nurses cannot learn about the achievements of their predecessors through neglect of historical research and failure to publish extant testimonials.

One of Nurse Belońska’s obituaries says,

Jadwiga Belońska,2 division head in the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, died in Warsaw on 9 November 1965. She was a survivor of Nazi German concentration camps. She received the Gold and Silver Crosses of Merit3 and the Medal for the Tenth Anniversary of People’s Poland.4 We have lost a splendid person and a trusted colleague, a social activist and executive member of the Polish United Workers’ Party5 in the Ministry, and a dear friend. May she stay in our memory forever. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, its Party members and employees’ council. 

After the War Jadwiga Dąbrowska-Belońska was a senior administrative officer, and perhaps that is why she was given a biographical note apart from an obituary, stressing her integrity, commitment, organising and teaching skills, patriotism, and her social involvement, as well as listing the appointments she held in her career (see Służba Zdrowia 1965: 47). This section of Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim seems to be the right place to present the most important facts about a person who was commended for all these virtues and skills.


Jadwiga Dąbrowska-Belońska. Source: Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1971.. Click the image to enlarge.

Jadwiga Dąbrowska was born on 1 January 1912 in the region of Podolia, in the village of Czarny Ostrów near Płoskirów.6 She was one of the six children of Franciszek Dąbrowski and Zofia née Kołdowska. At the age of 15, Jadwiga finished primary school in Sokolniki near Lwów,7 where her father worked. At school she was a member of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association.8 As her parents could not afford to pay for her to continue at school, Jadwiga stayed in her native village, resorting to self-education. In the letter I received from Jadwiga’s sister Władysława Marcyniak, her attitude towards her relatives, especially her mother and sister Władysława, is described as devoted and caring. In 1933-1936 Jadwiga was employed as an intern by the Lwów Anti-Tuberculosis Association,9 and in its nearby sanatorium in Hołosko Wielkie.10 Aleksandra Rudecka, a senior nurse who worked there at that time, said in her letter that it was clear that Jadwiga Dąbrowska was deeply committed to her work with TB patients and their families in the Association’s care. Although she was very young, she had a lot of initiative, self-reliance, and resourcefulness in solving their difficult problems, sparing neither time nor effort. It was obvious she had a natural gift for nursing.

I received another letter from Anna Sawczyńska-Spurny, Chief Nurse for the Voivodeship11 of Lwów. She wrote that she had sent Jadwiga Dąbrowska to a nursing school in Warsaw to study for two and a half years (from 3 October 1936 to 1 May 1939). Such a move was possible, because Jadwiga won a scholarship awarded by the Lwów Health Division after she passed her final exams as an external student of a state grammar school.12

From 1 May 1939 to 30 October 1941 Dąbrowska worked as matron of the Hołosko Wielkie TB sanatorium. In Rudecka’s opinion, straightaway she won the trust of her supervisors and patients. Zofia Krasińska-Leśniak told me that during Poland’s defence campaign in September 193913 Dąbrowska organised a field hospital on the premises of Lwów Polytechnic,14 where she tended to the sick and wounded. Her sister informed me in her letter that shortly afterwards Jadwiga stopped receiving correspondence from her beloved youngest brother Józef, who went missing. However, she did not despair. She gave up her job in Hołosko Wielkie, because, as she said in her own biography, she “did not want to look after the Volksdeutsche15 who were being referred to the sanatorium by the Germans.” On 1 November 1941 she was employed as a clerk by the Lwów office of Polski Komitet Opiekuńczy, a charity organization which was a branch of the RGO (Main Welfare Council).16 Dąbrowska worked for its social assistance division, in a section which provided welfare services and searched for missing people. On 15 May 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo.

Jadwiga Dąbrowska’s working conditions and the role she played in the RGO are described by her colleague Władysława Szaynowska:

I knew Dąbrowska well, because we had been working together for the RGO in Lwów . . . from 1941 to the day when the Gestapo arrested her in the RGO office. . . . Like any charity or welfare institution, the social assistance division offered clerical jobs involving plenty of paperwork. Jadwiga neither liked nor wanted to sit behind a desk, because as a nurse she was used to face-to-face contact with people in distress. At that time, the RGO offices were flooded by crowds of the needy of various ages. . . . As the RGO’s funds were limited, whenever she could, Jadwiga added to the meagre official allowance out of her own pocket. She always helped those in need. For instance, she offered accommodation in her flat to those who could not stay in their own homes and had to find shelter elsewhere. She treated such favours as something normal, she was always cheerful and optimistic. Thanks to her agreeable disposition, sense of humour, and supportiveness, Jadwiga was a popular and admired colleague. At difficult moments, she never lost her courage and never let others founder.

Rudecka said that when Jadwiga Dąbrowska was working for the RGO, she was a member of the Union of Armed Struggle, later the Home Army.17 Anna Spurny recollected that Dąbrowska distributed underground papers and helped those who were on the invaders’ wanted list. Marcyniak described the situation in famine-stricken Lwów, where even young people went around the city, begging for bread. Dąbrowska collected food from her friends to distribute it to those who were destitute. She owned an allotment and gave away all her produce to the poor. She also donated blood to earn money and support a woman who was in hiding with her child, while her husband was in jail. Dąbrowska was a person you could always rely on, she never tired, she never grumbled, but always showed concern with the lives of other people. 

After the War, Spurny enquired about the circumstances of her arrest. Dąbrowska explained that she had not been turned in by anybody, but detained by accident. “They had been looking for a Hedwig,18 so when they found one, that is myself, they got so excited that the other Hedwig could leave the RGO office in good time.” When asked about her interrogation in the Lwów jail at ul. Łąckiego, she said the Gestapo asked her for her nom-de-guerre. Dąbrowska replied she was not a writer, so she did not use a nom-de-plume. She was hit on the face and lost a few teeth.

She spent most of her time in that jail in solitary confinement, from 15 May to 1 October 1943. Dr Katarzyna Łaniewska19 said in her letter that Dąbrowska neither broke down nor grassed on any resistance fighters. The two women met in jail when the prisoners were being re-grouped in cells pending transportation to the concentration camp. By that time Dąbrowska had already become a slight, emaciated figure, but she still had her kind smile and lively blue eyes. She quickly made friends with her new cellmates.

On 1 October 1943 she was put on a train from Lwów to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The group consisted of 730 men and 239 women and arrived in the camp on the evening of 3 October. This transport is listed in the Auschwitz timeline compiled by Danuta Czech.20 Dr Łaniewska described the prisoners’ dire journey. The women had either to stand or to hunker down in goods carriages, travelling for over two days and nights congested in a tight squeeze and stifling stench. On the evening of their third day, they were greeted in Birkenau by yelling, violent SS-men. The bodies of those who had died on the way were disposed of. The women were brought into the camp at night and herded into a barrack that had no flooring and no beds. They were given cold and weak ersatz coffee and at long last were allowed to lie down. The same night, they had their camp numbers tattooed on their forearms. Łaniewska said that many downhearted women went into sobs or hysterics. Dąbrowska tried to relieve their anguish and calm them down.

After they had had their heads shaved and all their body hair removed, and put on shabby camp gear, the women from Lwów were sent to Block 25, called the Death Block,21 supervised by the infamous block elder Cylka.22 There were as many as 1,300 women in the block. They were quarantined for a week in this terribly overcrowded place, in complete isolation from the rest of the camp. Łaniewska, Dąbrowska, and fourteen other detainees had to share one bunk bed intended to sleep four. Łaniewska said she remembered Dąbrowska singing: although the other women despaired, she either sang Polish songs or recited poems, because she knew the grim realities could not be suffered otherwise. Łaniewska stressed that Dąbrowska’s singing helped the women “to recover their own selves and their human dignity.”

After two or three weeks, prisoners who were doctors or nurses were given jobs in the women’s hospital. Dąbrowska was employed in Block 29. It was November 1943 and the inmates could see a bleak camp winter approaching. There were over 900 inpatients in Dąbrowska’s block. Many of them had typhus or acute TB. There were three or four patients to a bunk, medicines and dressings were in short supply, and often the water supply was cut off. The block elder was Regina Borys (now Skowrońska); the doctors included Sadowska and Luba,23 a Russian woman; and the nurse was Anna Bracka. The SS doctors were Horst Fischer24 and later Josef Mengele.25 They often selected sick prisoners for death in the gas chambers.

Jadwiga Dąbrowska, prisoner No. 54125, promptly engaged in efforts to save patients and regardless of the dismal conditions, used her nursing skills as efficiently as possible, which in practice meant supporting inmates emotionally. Dr Łaniewska wrote that Dąbrowska was

absolutely devoted to her work for the patients. Those who know what the Birkenau hospital looked like can fully appreciate her attempts. You had to struggle even to wash the sick women and keep the place more or less tidy. But our sweet Jadwiga took tender, loving care of everybody, regardless of nationality, and sometimes gave them wonderful surprises. In December 1943, she decided to make Christmas Eve dinner.26 Every inpatient got a portion of thin soup and, as a gift, Jadwiga washed their ragged sheets. Then she sang Christmas carols in her soft but warm voice. Jadwiga was lucky enough to receive wholesome food parcels, so she shared the contents with those who were less fortunate and called them her “dear family.” Similar supportive groups sprang up in other blocks too. Whenever she could, she also gave food to the Zamość children.27 

Zofia Sobierajska-Przanowska (registered in Auschwitz as Krzyczkowska, No. 64429) said in her letter that in the early months of 1944 Dąbrowska went down with typhus. After a period of convalescence, she resumed her regular nursing duties, although she had been weakened by the disease and was hardly able to keep up on her feet, she still saw to patients, trying to alleviate their suffering in any way she could. Whenever the block’s water supply was not cut off, she washed the women. She put more straw under their heads to make them comfortable, filled the chinks between the planks to prevent shreds of straw from falling onto the lower bunks, made dressings of paper bands that had been “organised”28 to serve as bandages, handed out herbal concoctions for the sick to drink, and moistened their cracked lips when they were running a fever. She realised that since pharmacological treatment was unavailable, the only way to help was to provide psychological support, so she pacified and soothed distressed inmates, offering them words of comfort and trying to turn their thoughts away from their tragic predicament. She was particularly attentive to young patients, because they found it harder to cope with the camp realities and separation from their families than older women. One of Dąbrowska’s wards was Maria Żyromska, a young married woman from Lwów, who died in late 1944. In the evenings Dąbrowska had more free time, and would recite poetry or sing cheerful, melodious songs, which improved everybody’s mood and brought a brief, but much needed respite from the surrounding horror.

When the War was over, Jadwiga Dąbrowska led a very busy life and that is why she never made a detailed written record of her memories of the camp, even though she thought she should have done, as testified by Zofia Krasińska-Leśniak, another survivor, who sent me Dąbrowska’s short note concerning her life in the camp. Here are some excerpts:

Life in the camp started at sunrise. . . . The previous night Irena Czaplicka’s mother died. Irka29 herself is in a bad condition and was taken to the hospital today. She’s unconscious, and that’s better for her. Also Marysia Procho died, and the girl from the top bunk, who was arrested when she was being married in church. . . . Ninka is dying and no-one is going to hear her deep voice again or the popular songs she used to sing so pleasantly. . . . Marysia Żyromska, who was my cellmate in Lwów, was also my travel companion in the overcrowded freight wagon with a barred window, on the cattle train for Auschwitz. We were just as terrified by the view of the camp: it seemed we were at the bottom of the sea, and the impression was made stronger by the fog and the enormous barrage balloons over Auschwitz. Marysia was 22 or 23, and I knew all there was to know about her. She talked to me about her childhood as an only daughter, who was loved genuinely and wisely . . . and she recalled it almost every day. . . . She felt a terrible nostalgia, and sorrow made her young heart mature. During the day she seemed carefree, cheery, and very considerate: whenever she had the strength to help out, she came to the aid of weaker inmates. But at night, her wistfulness resurged and she whispered all her innermost girlish secrets to me. On St Andrew’s Eve,30 she prayed earnestly, asking God to bring her a dream of her future husband. . . . She said she wanted to live like a tree, without having to wait, think, or miss anything. But she couldn’t, and kept on about how things would be after the War. She believed she would survive and live to be held in a doting husband’s arms and hugged by her elderly parents. . . . She died of tuberculosis, on the eve of liberation.31 I miss her like a sister who will never wrap her arms around my neck again to say she is happy, just like Marysia used to say she missed things. . . . Jadzia Serafin was a sixteen-year-old girl guide from the area of Kutno. She arrived in Auschwitz on the same day as I. She was pretty and her complexion was so fair that she seemed to radiate sunlight. She did not consider herself an inmate of a concentration camp, but a prisoner of war. What really outraged her was that she was stripped of her girl guide uniform: “They took my broad leather belt, which made me look like a soldier.”32 We shared a bunk in Block 25. . . . Although very young, she was a mature person and wanted her time in Auschwitz to be a continuation of her previous work for her country. . . . She told me of her comings and goings as a courier of an underground unit: she relayed orders and found places where the men could get provisions. . . . She never thought about the dangers: she had felt the call of the road and her steps seemed to be like beads she was threading on its interminable stretch. . . . Against the backdrop of the camp, where terror hung in the air, against the grey barracks and the thousands of women in striped gear, with frightened, wizened faces, Jadzia’s youth and beauty were an outcry, an accusation, and a contradiction. She was quickly losing her strength and her eyes were becoming larger and more and more surprised by the fact it was taking so long. One bleak morning, following a roll call during which we had been standing for several hours in the rain and wind, Jadzia ran a fever. I took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with typhus. Her young body managed to recover, but then she contracted tuberculosis, which took away my Jadzia, my little wartime daughter, my beloved child. She’ll never tell us what the wayside trees whispered to her, how the soft soil pampered her feet as she was bravely walking along barefoot, or what stories the birds and beetles told her.

These extensive excerpts from Dąbrowska’s notes demonstrate that she was a keen observer of the nuances of her inmates’ emotional lives, and of their physical deterioration. What is special about the majority of the nurses’ accounts is their style: vivid, sentimental, sometimes pretentious, vastly different from the doctors’ manner of writing. This style reflects the nurses’ experience, mirrors their camp trauma, and is indicative of their personalities, so a perceptive reader can infer a great deal about the camp life of the imprisoned women.

After the women’s hospital had been moved to the Zigeunerlager,33 in the summer of 1944 Dąbrowska started working in the infectious ward in Block 24 under Dr Stefania Perzanowska,34 who had been transferred from Majdanek. The inpatients had various contagious diseases, including STDs. Dąbrowska was in charge of one half of the block and Zofia Krasińska-Leśniak35 of the other half. Dąbrowska’s duty was to assist Dr Perzanowska during all the procedures, so she changed dressings, administered intramuscular and intravenous injections, set up enemas, and took blood samples for tests.

A group of children deported from Warsaw after the 1944 Uprising36 was sent to Birkenau. When they went down with scarlet fever and were admitted to Block 24, Dąbrowska always found the time and strength to sing to them and tell them fairy tales. She believed a kind heart and a warm word can heal. Dr Alina Przerwa-Tetmajer37 said in her letter that Dąbrowska had excellent treatment results, though she used only bolus alba, that is a mixture of white clay and water, which in Auschwitz acquired the reputation of a miracle cure. Patients felt better as soon as they heard her assertive statement, “I see you’ve really improved!” She was amiable and selfless, and volunteered for the hardest hospital chores. She often walked round the block at night, bringing patients toilet buckets or some water to drink. Dr Przerwa-Tetmajer stressed that Dąbrowska had the ability to improve the atmosphere and make people relax. She was a straightforward and open person, and responded to problems in a considerate, humanitarian manner. It was not unlike her to reprimand the block elder for being dishonest in the distribution of the food rations. She took personal risks, hiding seriously ill patients during selections.38 She stood up against any form of discrimination in the way inmates were treated.

Jadwiga Romeyko,39 who was under Dąbrowska’s care in the infectious ward, described her as follows:

She was an excellent nurse, who mustered all her strength to help her fellows. She was not ostentatious about it, and I suppose none of the patients under her care realized how much effort it cost her.

As a nurse in Block 24, Dąbrowska also features in the recollections of Dr Stefania Perzanowska, who wrote:

Dąbrowska was a short, blue-eyed blonde with delicate, regular features. Although emaciated, she beamed with gentleness and friendliness, which was unusual in the camp. She was frightfully thin and whitish pale, looking sickly even by Auschwitz standards. This scrawny, skinny, petite little figure was as busy as a bee and worked indefatigably. She looked after the most seriously ill, with not just affection, but also a smile on her kind face. . . . When I got to know her better, I found that this tiny little creature was a fountain of good emotions and immeasurable cordiality. Then I came to understand her devotion as a nurse in the prisoners’ hospital. . . . It never occurred to Jadzia that she should be using her strength sparingly. . . . I feared for her health when I saw her hauling very heavy vats of swede soup from the kitchen; she never shirked such duties, whereas the tallest and most robust women did. . . . Another phenomenally hard-working person was Zofia Krasińska-Leśniak, who had been transferred to Auschwitz from Majdanek, just like myself. . . . She became Jadzia’s close friend, though they had different temperaments. Jadzia was candid, effusive, and straightforward; she wore her heart on her sleeve, instantly communicating what she was thinking and feeling. Zosia was dedication and goodness personified, but she was also withdrawn, taciturn, and placid. . . . I had many “daughters” in the camp and have stayed in touch with several of them ever since the end of the War. But Jadzia and Zosia have always been my dearest. 

Both Dr Łaniewska and Zofia Krasińska-Leśniak stated that on 17-18 January 1945, when the camp was being evacuated, Dąbrowska did not want to leave her patients and stayed in the Birkenau hospital with a group of the most seriously ill, risking death, as they were likely to be killed. She did not obey the last order to assemble before the march. The last days in the camp were marked by lack of food, water, and most importantly, lack of news. The doctors and nurses, that is Dr Katarzyna Łaniewska, Dr Irena Konieczna,40 and nurses Dąbrowska, Suchowiak, Krzemińska, and Krasińska-Leśniak, were unable to meet the needs of the seriously ill prisoners. In that difficult period, the most pleasant experience was tearing down the wire fencing to clear an evacuation route: before the Germans left the camp, they set the clothes warehouses on fire, which could have spread to other buildings. In an emergency, the patients would have had to be carried outside the perimeter. Nonetheless, Dąbrowska kept singing.

In the early days of February, after an exhausting journey on foot, Dąbrowska and her colleagues reached Kraków. In March 1945 she was still in that city, not having heard anything from her family. Her financial situation was very difficult, because she had received only 500 złoty as a survivor’s benefit awarded by the PKWN41 administration. By pure chance, Dąbrowska learned that her brother Konstanty Dąbrowski42 had become Minister of the State Treasury. She heard the good news during the first meeting of Auschwitz survivors convened by Dr Alfred Fiderkiewicz.43

As soon as Dąbrowska managed to get a lift, she went to the PKWN headquarters in Lublin, though the journey was far from unadventurous: she had no travel pass. Shortly afterwards the long-awaited daughter was reunited with her parents and other surviving relatives who had come to Lublin. It took Dąbrowska a few weeks to recover, as Auschwitz-Birkenau had left her emaciated and very weak. Then she decided to take up a job in Warsaw in the Main Social Welfare Committee,44 located on ul. Targowa in the district of Praga. Initially she was a clerk and later head of the division of care-giving and wintertime assistance. She was an outstanding social activist. Her husband Józef Beloński,45 the then chairman of the Committee, wrote in his letter that her efforts were not confined to the regular working hours, but continued in her free time. She visited homes for orphaned children, the elderly, and single mothers. In the aftermath of the War, the Committee had plenty of extremely challenging tasks. The financial resources were scarce, yet a multitude of war invalids, Nazi German victims who had survived concentration camps, as well as exhausted and starving civilians throughout the country needed aid. Dąbrowska, a modest and self-effacing woman, was called an “angel of goodness and a generous heart.” She helped disabled and repatriated people, the elderly and the children, sometimes out of her own pocket. In the camp she was concerned primarily with the imprisoned children; now they were the focus of her attention too, especially those who had been orphaned during the War. Dąbrowska was able to solve the most intractable problems. For instance, she was an excellent carer for Maria Danuta K., aged 16, who had lost both her arms during the 1944 Warsaw Rising. Thanks to Dąbrowska’s help, she was employed as a reception clerk in one of the ministries, attended an evening school and completed her secondary education, and became an independent woman, despite her disability. She married and had a child. During all those transitions, Dąbrowska was her mentor and companion. She had progressive views, but a difference of opinion never harmed or hampered her co-operation with other people of good will. Dąbrowska was loyal to her old friends and deeply grateful to them. Educating nurses after the War was not an easy mission, and she said so quite openly, but sometimes her intentions were misread. Her outstanding traits were objectivity, fairness, kindness, tolerance, warm-heartedness, openness, cheerfulness, and the ability to create a pleasant atmosphere and dispel discord.

Jadwiga Dąbrowska held many social and political appointments. In 1947 she became a member of the PPS (Polish Socialist Party) and later joined the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) following the merger of the PPS and the PPR (Polish Workers’ Party).46 She was a magistrate in a juvenile court. From 1949, she was head of the Organising Division for Secondary Medical Schools47 and then division head of the Department of Sanitation and Epidemiology.48 She was an executive member of the PZPR branch in her institution and an activist of the Polish Red Cross. Although she had so many professional and public commitments, she was a part-time student for four years and graduated in Law from the University of Warsaw.

Jadwiga Dąbrowska-Belońska was an outstanding nurse, a woman of perseverance, inner discipline, and dedication. Even in the most onerous circumstances, she was able to put aside her own needs and weaknesses in order to attain more important common goals, that is to help people in need. Such a stance, as Zofia Sobierajska-Przanowska rightly observed in her letter, is reminiscent of the figure of the reliable guardian described by the philosopher Prof. Tadeusz Kotarbiński, who said, “A guardian is reliable if you can put all your trust in him and know he won’t fail you; that he will do his duty properly, stand by your side in danger, and provide you with solid support when you are in a dire situation.” (Kotarbiński, 68).


*

This biographical article is based on the following sources:
1) Jadwiga Dąbrowska-Belońska’s own biography and short camp memories;

2) information provided by her family, that is her sister Władysława Marcyniak and her husband Józef Beloński;

3) usually extensive accounts sent in between 1972 and 1974 by Maria Jaszczukowa (Auschwitz survivor No. 64407); Maria Danuta K.; Adam Gruca; Stefania Jangsch; Zofia Krasińska-Leśniak; Katarzyna Łaniewska; Wanda Orłoś (Auschwitz survivor No. 77363); Janina Palmowska-Frankowska (Auschwitz survivor No. 55851); Stefania Perzanowska (survivor of Majdanek, No. 235; Auschwitz, No. 77368; and Ravenbrück, No. 107185); Zofia Sobierajska-Przanowska (Auschwitz survivor No. 64429); Jadwiga Romeyko (Auschwitz survivor No. 43557); Aleksandra Rudecka; Anna Spurny; Władysława Szaynowska; Władysława Szoc; Alina Przerwa-Tetmajer (Auschwitz survivor, No. 64503); and Wanda Ukleja. My heartfelt thanks go to all these people as well as to Tadeusz Iwaszko, who provided me with data held in the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

4) my own recollections.

Notes
  1. Jan Masłowski (1931–2015) was a member of the original editorial board of Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim and a prolific writer on subjects connected with concentration camps. At the time this article was published, he was working on a book about nurses in the Polish resistance movement. It was published in 1976.a
  2. After her marriage, Jadwiga had a double surname: Dąbrowska, her maiden name, and Belońska after her husband. This obituary gives only her married name.a
  3. Złoty i Srebrny Krzyż Zasługi.b
  4. Medal 10-lecia PRL.b
  5. The PZPR (Polish United Workers’ Party) was the official name of the ruling Communist Party in the People’s Republic of Poland. Branches of the Party operated at all levels of society, including factories, offices, and other workplaces.b
  6. Now Chornyi Ostriv in the district of Khmelnytskyi, western Ukraine.b
  7. Now Sokilniki near Lviv, Ukraine.b
  8. Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego.b
  9. Lwowskie Towarzystwo Walki z Gruźlicą.b
  10. Now Holosko Velyke, Ukraine.b
  11. Polish first-tier administrative regions are called voivodeships. Currently the country is divided into 16 voivodeships, and before the War there were 17.b
  12. I Gimnazjum we Lwowie.b
  13. Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September, and by Soviet Russia on 17 September 1939. The country’s defence operations lasted for the whole of September and into the first week of October. Its allies, Britain and France, failed to keep their promise to provide military assistance.b
  14. Politechnika Lwowska.a
  15. In countries under Nazi German occupation Volksdeutsche were persons with German roots, usually local people who were citizens of the German-occupied country. They enjoyed certain privileges unavailable to persons with no ethnic connection with Germany.b
  16. The Main Welfare Council (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza) was the only Polish charity institution of this kind the Germans recognized and allowed to continue operations.b
  17. ZWZ (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, the Union of Armed Struggle) was one of the earliest organisations in the Polish resistance movement, later transforming into the AK (Armia Krajowa, the Home Army).b
  18. Hedwig is the German form of the Polish name Jadwiga.b
  19. For the biography of Dr Katarzyna Łaniewska, see the article by Stanisław Kłodziński on this website.b
  20. Published in Polish as Kalendarz wydarzeń w KL Auschwitz, Oświęcim: Wydawnictwo Państwowego Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1992 (First published 1960). First American edition: Auschwitz Chronicle, 1939-1945, New York: H. Holt, 1990.b
  21. Not to be confused with Block 11, Death Block in the main camp (Auschwitz I).b
  22. For more on Cylka (aka Cilka), see the testimony of Auschwitz and Ravensbrück survivor Stanisława Rachwał in Zapisy terroru (Chronicles of Terror), online at https://www.zapisyterroru.pl/dlibra/publication/3713/edition/3694.a
  23. Probably Dr Lubov Yakovlevna Alpatova. See Maria Ciesielska, Szpital obozowy dla kobiet w KL Auschwitz-Birkenau (1942-1945), p. 28. Online at www.polska1926.pl.a
  24. SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr Horst Fischer (1912-1966), Nazi German war criminal, executed for crimes committed in Auschwitz-Birkenau.b
  25. SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr Josef Mengele (1911-1979), one of the most notorious Nazi German war criminals who conducted pseudo-medical experiments. For a recent study, see Helena Kubica, “Dr Mephisto of Auschwitz”. In: Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire. Conference Proceedings 2019. Kraków: Polski Instytut Evidence Based Medicine, 2020. pp. 71-90. Available online in open access—click the link to read.b
  26. Dinner on the night of Christmas Eve is the highlight of the Polish Christmas celebrations. It is a family event.b
  27. In connection with their racial resettlement ideas (Lebensraum Generalplan-Ost), the Germans devised a plan to deport the Polish population of the Zamość region of Poland and “resettle” the area with Volksdeutsche. They carried out the scheme, “cleansing” the area of its Polish inhabitants. From late November 1942 to March 1943 they also abducted an estimated 30 thousand Polish children. Those they considered “good for Germanisation” were adopted by German families, and the rest were sent to Auschwitz, where they died of starvation or were killed with a phenol injection. See a Wikipedia article on the subject (in English).b
  28. In prisoners’ concentration camp jargon, “to organise” meant “to obtain by fair means or foul,” including stealing, pilfering, etc.b
  29. This paragraph of memoirs uses diminutive forms of the names of fellow-prisoners—“Irka” for “Irena,” “Marysia” for “Maria,” “Jadzia” for “Jadwiga,” and “Ninka” for “Janina” (or perhaps “Antonina”)—to express familiarity and comradeship.b
  30. A traditional pastime for Polish girls on St Andrew’s Eve (the night of 29/30 November) is to play a variety of fortune-telling games, usually concerning their future husbands and which of them will be the first to marry.b
  31. Auschwitz was liberated on 27 January 1945, so Marysia must have died in early 1945.b
  32. Polish scouts and guides took an active part in the resistance movement.b
  33. The Zigeunerlager (the Sinti and Roma camp) was a separate part of Birkenau set up on orders from Mengele, who accommodated a group of Sinti and Roma families there and used them as human guinea pigs for his experiments. On 2 August 1944, after he had finished his experiments, he had them killed. Read more on the website of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.b
  34. For more on Dr Perzanowska, see Marta Grudzińska, “Dr Stefania Perzanowska, founder of the women prisoners’ hospital at Majdanek concentration camp,” In: Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire. Conference Proceedings 2019, Kraków: Polski Instytut Evidence Based Medicine, 91-104. Available online in open access—click the link to read.b
  35. Nurse Zofia Krasińska-Leśniak (d. 2012) was one of the medical team that stayed in Auschwitz to look after inmates unable to leave on the forced Death March in early 1945. See Maria Ciesielska, Szpital obozowy dla kobiet w KL Auschwitz-Birkenau (1942–1945), 26. Online at www.polska1926.pl.b
  36. In the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising of the summer of 1944 (not to be confused with the Ghetto Uprising of April 1943), the Germans razed the city to the ground and evicted over half a million of its inhabitants. Many of the civilians, including children, were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. See Norman Davies, Rising ’44 (2004), and the extensive English-language bibliography at http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/FurtherR.htm.b
  37. Dr Alina Przerwa-Tetmajer (1915–1996), paediatrician, chief physician of the surgery ward in the Warsaw Children’s Hospital. During the War treated wounded resistance fighters; Auschwitz survivor.b
  38. In Nazi German concentration camps the SS doctors conducted “selections,” i.e. short-listed very sick patients for death in the gas chambers or by phenol injection.b
  39. Jadwiga Romeyko. Auschwitz survivor, deported to the camp from Warsaw on 28 April 1943; mentioned in an article on the last days of Auschwitz, https://dzieje.pl/aktualnosci/ostatnie-dni-auschwitz; http://www.tenhumbergreinhard.de/transportliste-der-deportierten/transportliste-der-deportierten-1943/transport-28041943-warschau-1.htm.b
  40. Dr Irena Konieczna, gynaecologist, physician in the Polish resistance movement, and Auschwitz survivor, saved mothers’ and babies’ lives in the camp, and refused to perform abortions in Auschwitz and after the War. See Maria Ciesielska, Szpital obozowy dla kobiet w KL Auschwitz-Birkenau (1942–1945), 81-85. Online at www.polska1926.pl. See also https://jedenznas.pl/wykonala-aborcji-mogli-ja-zabic/.b
  41. PKWN, the Polish Committee of National Liberation, which pioneered the Communist government imposed on the liberated territories of Poland by the Red Army in July 1944.b
  42. Konstanty Dąbrowski (1906–1975), economist, successively minister of several ministries in People’s Poland, 1945–1956; later held other senior government offices.b
  43. Alfred Fiderkiewicz (1886–1972), pre-war Communist activist and Mayor of Kraków after the Germans fled the city in 1945.b
  44. Centralny Komitet Opieki Społecznej.b
  45. Józef Beluch-Beloński (1897–1985), pre-war member of the PPS Polish Socialist Party; in exile during the War, returned to Poland in 1945 and took an active part in political affairs in People’s Poland.a
  46. The PPS was a pre-war, non-Communist political party, while the PPR was a Soviet-sponsored party made up of Communists who entered the post-war Provisional Government of National Unity. In 1948 the pre-war PPS was merged with the PPR, giving rise to the PZPR.b
  47. Wydział Organizacji Średnich Szkół Medycznych.b
  48. Departament Sanitarno-Epidemiologiczny.b

a—notes by Marta Kapera, the translator of the article; b—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Head Translator for the Medical Review – Auschwitz project.


References

Gierczak, Andrzej (Ed.). 1970. Kobieta w walce. Wspomnienia. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo MON.

“Jadwiga Belońska.” 1965. Służba Zdrowia 47.

Kotarbiński, Tadeusz. 1966. Medytacje o życiu godziwym, Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.

Masłowski, Jan. 1970. “Uwagi o pielęgniarskiej tematyce okupacyjnej.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim: 277–281.

Masłowski, Jan. 1976. Pielęgniarki w drugiej wojnie światowej. With an introduction by Józef Bogusz. Warszawa: Państwowy Zakład Wydawnictw Lekarskich.

Matusowa, Barbara [aka] Kwiatkowska. 1968. Na partyzancki poszły bój... 1939-1945. Stanisława Młodożeniec-Warowna (Ed.). Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza.

      

A publication funded in 2020–2021 within the DIALOG Program of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland.

See also

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