Jadwiga Jędrzejowska

How to cite: Szemińska, Alina. Jadwiga Jędrzejowska. Kapera, Marta, trans. Medical Review – Auschwitz. July 30, 2021. Originally published in Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim. 1979: 195-199.

Author

Alina Szemińska, 1907–1986, psychologist and pedagogist, cooperated with Jean Piaget, helping him produce the theory of cognitive development in children. During the Second World War, she worked for the Polish Red Cross and was imprisoned by the Nazi German authorities, first in the Warsaw Ghetto (1942), and then in the notorious Pawiak jail in Warsaw and in Auschwitz (1943; prisoner No. 69335), where she worked as a prisoner nurse in the prisoners’ hospital. Szemińska survived the war and continued her work as an academic teacher, researcher, and social activist. In 1979 she was awarded with a honoris causa doctorate from the University of Geneva for her contribution to the development of psychology.

Jadwiga Jędrzejowska1 died on 22 February 1978 at the age of 73, after a serious illness. Formally she was not a medical professional, but she deserves her own biographical article. Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim wants to commemorate the life and achievement of this outstanding social activist, who was a member of the medical service in the Pawiak jail in Warsaw and worked as a nurse in Ravensbrück.

Her personality and interests were shaped by her family background. Her father was Ksawery Franciszek Prauss (1874–1925; nicknamed Górnik and Leopold), a geologist and an active member of working-class as well as educationalist movements. He belonged to the PPS,2 and was a co-founder of TUR.3 In 1918 he became Minister of Education and had to establish a new school system in the restored Polish state. In 1922–1925 he worked for the Polish Teachers’ Union,4 and was a member of the Senate of the Republic of Poland. Jędrzejowska’s mother was Zofia Praussowa (1876–1945), a mathematician, also involved in Socialist movements. She was a member of the PPS and a deputy to the Polish Seym. She died in Auschwitz in January 1945, just a few days before the camp was liberated. When Jadwiga’s parents were arrested by the Russian authorities5 and incarcerated in the Pawiak jail6 in Warsaw, she smuggled out an illicit message hidden in her doll’s dress: it was her first “underground operation.” Even though the Prauss couple were later released from jail, they had to live in exile. Jadwiga remembered that period spent abroad all too well. She was unable to contact her father, who had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and was undergoing treatment in a sanatorium. The family was going through financial hardship, as now only the mother was the breadwinner, running a boarding house for Polish immigrants in France. The Prausses and their daughter only returned home in 1911.


Jadwiga Jędrzejowska, 1948. Source: Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1979. Click the image to enlarge.

Jadwiga’s father founded a special school for sickly children in Zakopane, which was later modernised, with a curriculum that involved practical aspects of social work, such as community service and developing self-reliance. Those objectives were achieved mainly through the operations of the students’ council. The Zakopane episode in Jadwiga’s life was a very happy time. She liked to reminisce about her schooldays and hiking in the Tatra Mountains, biology field work under the guidance of her father, who taught biology and geography, living in a students’ boarding house (managed by her mother, a maths teacher), meeting Henryk Jędrzejowski,7 whom she later married, and many other eminent people such as Henryk’s father Bolesław Antoni Jędrzejowski8 (party pseudonym Baj, a member of the Proletariat Party and one of the founders of the PPS). She also made the acquaintance of Stefan Żeromski,9 Andrzej Strug,10 Wacław Sieroszewski,11 Karol Szymanowski,12 Bronisława Dłuska née Skłodowska13 (who worked as a school physician for Prauss’ establishment), Lityński, and many other celebrities. Jadwiga recalled that once Nadezhda Krupskaya14 visited her parents and that they met Lenin15 in the house where Boris Vigilev,16 another revolutionary, was staying.

Just before the Great War began, Jadwiga’s younger sister Ewa17 was born (later she married the historian Stanisław Płoski18). During the War, the Prauss family had to move house very often. For a time, they worked in Piotrków (now in central Poland) for Centralne Biuro Szkolne,19 organising Poland’s future Ministry of Education and the Polish Teachers’ Union. Having passed her school-leaving examination, Jadwiga enrolled at the Faculty of Geography at the University of Warsaw. In 1923, having married Henryk Jędrzejowski, she interrupted her education and left for France, as her husband had been appointed head of the laboratory in the Paris Radium Institute. Thanks to the support of Prof. Ludwik Wertenstein20 and Maria Skłodowska-Curie,21 he had also obtained a scholarship to study at the Pasteur Institute. During her stay in Paris, Jadwiga completed her studies at the Sorbonne and graduated in geology. She was commissioned by Prof. Stanisław Lencewicz22 to catalogue the cartographic collections of the Polish Library in Paris.23 After Henryk Jędrzejowski had earned his doctoral degree in physics, the couple returned to Warsaw. However, since Henryk was a member of the KPP,24 he could not apply for a university post and had to accept a less ambitious appointment as an assistant in the Geophysical Observatory at Świder.25 Later, he was a teacher in a vocational school. Jadwiga worked as a geography teacher in the Współpraca grammar school. Members of the KPP used the Jędrzejowskis’ flat as a venue for their clandestine meetings. During the summer holidays, Jadwiga ran camps for weakly children at Małkinia.26 In 1932 Henryk Jędrzejowski was arrested; shortly afterwards his wife was detained as well. Although she was released from the Pawiak, she was banned from working as a teacher. Henryk was released on bail and the KPP made arrangements for him to cross Poland’s eastern border illegally and travel to Moscow. In 1958 Jadwiga Jędrzejowska received an official notification of her husband’s death from the Department of the History of the Party.27 It said,

In reply to your enquiry, the Department of the History of the Party of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party28 advises that the register submitted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR to the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party in June 1958, has an entry for your husband Henryk Jędrzejowski aka Zbigniew Kaniowski, son of Roman Kaniowski. He is listed with other posthumously rehabilitated activists of the Polish Communist movement.

With [Communist] Party greetings,

Tadeusz Daniszewski, Head of the Department of the History of the Party, Polish United Workers’ Party

Jadwiga was left with her little daughter (b. 1930). She did not despair, although she was unemployed for a time. Instead, she became deeply engaged in work for the community. In 1934 she was given the task of establishing an entirely new type of institution, preparing women for paid work. That was the beginning of a women’s employment agency called Biuro Pośrednictwa Pracy Kobiet, which expanded its operations to provide comprehensive care for single women and teenage girls. She established MDK, a hostel for homeless women and single mothers and their children on ulica Leszno in Warsaw. It also provided accommodation for young girls who wanted to attend vocational courses (some of them conducted by the hostel staff) and ran a small infirmary. When World War II broke out in September 1939, this little hospital participated in the defence of Warsaw by taking in casualties. Its sewing workshop produced knapsacks, haversacks, and gas mask bags. The building sheltered people left with no roof over their head due to military operations. Later, under German occupation, it was a refuge for persons on the Nazi wanted list. Such people needed not only medical assistance, but also new ID documents, new safe houses, and new jobs. Here are some excerpts from the memoirs of Janina Ciechanowicz-Kłosowska:29

The hostel was a place with a crowd of people and a high turnover, so it was ideal for underground activity. . . . As it was situated near the ghetto, it was bound to help the lucky fugitives. . . . Jewish women were given shelter, provided with forged ID documents, and sent to safer hideouts. At night, hectic work went on in all the nooks and crannies, and the duplicator was always busy making copies of underground news bulletins which were distributed the next day. . . .

Jadwiga Jędrzejowska co-ordinated those efforts calmly and courageously. She was commissioned by Lt-Col. Alojzy Horak30 to organise the editorial office for the underground weekly Tygodnik Informacyjny. The work continued even after her arrest on 13 November 1942. A few days earlier, her mother, Zofia Praussowa, and Alojzy Horak, the commanding officer of the Warsaw area for the ZWZ31 and training officer for the BCh,32 were arrested too. Horak was executed by a firing squad on 12 February 1943. Zofia Praussowa was deported to the Majdanek concentration camp and then to Auschwitz, where she died shortly before the camp was liberated.

Jadwiga fell ill and had to be operated in the hospital of the Pawiak jail. When she recuperated, she started working as a member of the medical staff, who had set up a resistance network in the Pawiak. She served in that capacity until her deportation. Her official duties included keeping the rooms clean and deloused, reporting and bringing the sick to the hospital, and dispensing medicines. But she did much more. Although she would have been punished if caught, she tried to talk to each of the women prisoners about to be interrogated: she wanted to share information that could change the course of the interrogation and give them painkillers to cope with the torture. She dressed the wounds of those who had been beaten up under interrogation. As a functionary prisoner, she was allowed to see those who were in solitary confinement. Some women had been kept in complete isolation for over a year, so they cherished their contact with Jadwiga, as she gave them support and solace in the most difficult moments.

Although she lived in constant stress herself, she always tried to keep her composure and even to smile. Her attitude inspired trust, which was vital for the underground work. Jędrzejowska acted as an intermediary between those detainees who had been arrested together, but were later separated in the prison. She gave them information about the interrogation of their detained husbands, brothers or fellow combatants from men’s underground units. She also invented ways to send messages out, which was an especially risky enterprise. In a 1972 issue of Biuletyn Towarzystwa Wolnej Wszechnicy Polskiej Jadwiga Jędrzejowska described the work of MDK at the time of her imprisonment:

[The MDK] was the quickest, emergency way. When we received a kite [a secret message from or to a prison], it had to be answered on the same day. Our guards, especially Eugenia Mossakowska,33 Maria Rosłońska,34 Ludwika Uzar-Krysiakowa,35 and Zofia Döllinger,36 served as our liaison girls. . . . Kites from the MDK took one of three routes to their recipients. . . . Some were private letters to family members or organisations and they were distributed by Janina Czyńska and her daughter as well as Ewa Płoska [Jadwiga’s sister—AS]. . . . Here is an example: “Clear up the flat. Cubbyhole in the floor by the stove. Jerzy must move out now. The Gestapo asked about him.” Another group of messages contained lists of prisoners who had been executed or deported or with information on atrocities committed against detainees. They were delivered via the MDK to Stanisław Płoski, head of the Military History Office of the Home Army.37 Another group of messages concerned intelligence and sabotage operations (codename Parasol) as well as observations about the daily routines of Gestapo officers. . . .

The description of their appearance as well as their usual routes home from the Pawiak proved very helpful when special operations were staged to assassinate them. Jadwiga showed real courage. On one occasion, probably while searching a suspicious flat, the Gestapo discovered a kite from Błaszkiewiczowa, a Pawiak prisoner, who was tortured under interrogation. To stop the violence, Jadwiga told her to disclose the name of the intermediary, that is herself. However, her name was not revealed as Błaszkiewiczowa was killed while in solitary confinement, because the Gestapo found firearms in her former place of residence. Jadwiga’s work, medical services, and the risk she took while smuggling messages are still remembered by many fellow prisoners. Let me quote a passage from a statement by the late Maria Zarębińska-Broniewska:38

I met Jadwiga in the Pawiak. We were held in the same cell. Her kindness, dedication, and support for fellow inmates shall never be forgotten by those who made her acquaintance.

Maria Jaszczukowa,39 who was kept in a solitary cell for several months, wrote,

When I was put in solitary confinement, Jadwiga appeared with a tray of medicines. . . . She gave me some drops and painkillers and whispered all the information about other interrogations related to my case. . . . She also relayed the news that my husband had been arrested. . . . Every time I was interrogated, she would see me afterwards in my cell, bringing medicines and food from her own parcels. . . . Once we had a terrible incident with a kite. It was ready to be taken and I was holding it out when the door opened and we were told to go out. . . . I hid the note in my hair and tried to keep my head still while walking. When we were outside, the cell was thoroughly searched. . . . When we were back inside, Jadwiga saw me again on a pretext. Calm and relieved, she picked up my message. . . . When I was in Auschwitz, I found her mother and took the opportunity to repay her, at least in part, for all that Jadwiga Jędrzejowska had done for me, taking great risks, in the Pawiak jail.

Maria Pągowska,40 who was a corridor guard, recalls,

From the early morning, when the first prisoners were taken out of their cells to be interrogated, Jadwiga would circulate among them, giving them information, advice, and painkillers. She always carefully observed new arrivals, who were terrified. She would find a way to talk to them. She never cared about an inmate’s social or prison status or membership in a particular organisation: it was enough that she was a prisoner, a woman who needed help. . . . Back in the cell, Jadwiga discussed her work in the MDK and talked about her daughter Hanusia. She always had her photo on her. . . . Of course, in that time of terror, she was worried about her. . . .

Wanda Wróblewska spent many months in solitary confinement and was brutally beaten up. After the war she was head of one of the women’s institutions in the region of Silesia. She said,

Jadwiga seemed so unruffled that she inspired trust. She was full of courage and energy and that’s how she pepped up other prisoners.

Dr Alina Przerwa-Tetmajer,41 who was also kept in a solitary cell for a long time, said,

Only a person who lived through such sleepless nights, waiting either to be interrogated again or executed, can understand what I felt when Jadwiga turned up in my solitary cell. She was my spark of hope, a ray of sunshine, and water to the thirsty. She emanated calmness, trust in the other person, and reliance on the great human ability to establish bonds of friendship. She was the only one whom I dared to entrust with a note for my husband and my most secret requests.

On 30 July 1944, just before the Pawiak was closed down, Jędrzejowska was deported to Ravensbrück. Wanda Wójcik-Michałowska says that Jadwiga was met there by veteran camp prisoners, former Pawiak inmates. They suggested Jadwiga could be given lighter work, for instance in the sewing workshop, but she refused. She volunteered for work in the camp hospital, in the infectious ward, where she “would be needed the most,” as she stated. So she was sent to work in the room for typhus and typhoid patients, which also admitted cases of scarlet fever, diphtheria, and particularly acute diarrhoea. Jadwiga remembered work in that hospital as her hardest time in the camp. There were no medicines, only a few were procured by those prisoners who received parcels. Jadwiga did what she could to bring the suffering women some relief. She burnt wood to produce charcoal to alleviate diarrhoea, and wrapped febrile patients in cold wet sheets. She performed all these activities very calmly, although the conditions were more than difficult: sometimes bedridden patients had to spend the whole night next to a dead inmate, the place was infested with lice, and everything was soiled with faeces. Jadwiga brought water in (though getting it cost a lot of effort) and cleaned up the sick women, but washing their clothes was out of the question.

Yet the most traumatic moments were when patients were selected for death in the gas chamber. It took an enormous amount of courage and resourcefulness to hide seriously ill women or to think up a way of saving the lives of those who had already been selected for death. Sometimes healthy prisoners begged to be admitted to the infectious ward in order to avoid deportation and separation from a mother, daughter or sister, or to be reassigned to a better working unit after their discharge from the hospital. At such times Jadwiga had a dilemma: should she admit a healthy person to the ward at the risk of getting her infected?

The German nurses were biased against Polish functionary prisoners, especially towards the end of the War. Patients had to be tended on the sly so that no German nurse should notice. Jadwiga had to take care: that would have been the end of her work for the good of the patients.

On 5 March 1945 Jadwiga was deported to Stuttgart, where she was given the job of a kitchen hand in the Alte Mühle inn. She worked extremely hard and was not allowed to sit down even during her daytime meal. She said, “It was so tiring to be on your feet all day that I was exhausted and worked like a robot.” When the area was captured by French forces, Jadwiga immediately established contact with a welfare centre for Polish displaced persons which was being organised in Esslingen-am-Neckar.42 While waiting for a chance to return to Poland, she started work as head of the office in the Polish Mission. She registered people who came for help, tried to provide them with food, clothes, and medicines and find them some temporary accommodation. As soon as it became possible, she arranged repatriation transport. After her return home, she made an emotional appeal on Warsaw Radio to the Poles still living abroad, urging them to return. Here is an excerpt from her speech:

I think that those who are strong and healthy should come back immediately and promptly start rebuilding this ruined country. Those who are weak and old as well as families with children should spend winter where they happen to be staying and set off for home in the spring. . . .

In this appeal, as always, she was mindful of her compatriots’ health.

Although she was in poor shape herself, she instantly accepted an appointment with the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and went on a challenging mission to Lower Silesia: she was to set up a medical care and welfare system for women relocating there after many wartime misadventures. Upon arrival, most of them were in a bad condition, both physically and mentally. It was necessary to provide them with medical services, temporary accommodation, food and clothing, and to prepare them for ordinary life. Within a short space of time—by May 1946—Jędrzejowska managed to open eight facilities which had different profiles. For instance, in Wrocław she established a house for working women,43 which was modelled on the Warsaw MDK and could take in as many as 300 residents. Pregnant women and single mothers were referred to other homes in Ciążyn,44 a district of Wrocław, and Janowice. Repatriates in a poor physical condition were given a welcome in the Janowice and Michałowice health resorts. Those places offered special care for Ravensbrück survivors, the human guinea-pigs who had fallen victim to the pseudo-medical experiments conducted in that camp. Jędrzejowska appreciated the importance of general and vocational education, so she established a house for working women in Janowice, an educational house45 in Miedziana Góra, and an agricultural training centre46 in Hlondów.47

She worked with the Ministry of Health to develop the Polish health service by organising nursing courses. Some of the homes she established ran their own co-operatives, thanks to which women could be quickly trained on the job and earn their living. Jędrzejowska also founded an infant school and offered remedial classes to those who had fallen behind with their education during the War. Although it was not easy, she managed to acquire sewing machines, a knitting machine and a weaving loom, so her wards could be trained in new workshops. Her work in that period has left a vivid impression on the memory of her colleagues, Henryka Pychowa and Wanda Wróblewska. They say it was a difficult time, especially 1946–1947. Polish people called the former German territories the “Wild West,” as local administration was still rather feeble, all commodities were in short supply, and communities were still being harassed by marauding Werwolf troops.48

It took plenty of managerial skills and risk-taking as well as an ability to persuade people, reach out and use every opportunity to create institutions of such different profiles and keep them working. Another of her tasks was hiring competent staff for each facility. The doctors, nurses, socials workers, and counsellors had to be dedicated people to meet all the goals in the field of health service, education, and character formation. This is what Jędrzejowska’s fellow workers said:

These were precisely the skills that Jadwiga Jędrzejowska applied during her mission in Lower Silesia.

The work was difficult. You had to do the most basic chores yourself: cook, furnish the rooms, acquire provisions, fuel etc. Jadwiga always stood by our side and we could rely on her experience, wisdom, and authority. She was very brave in taking important decisions.

When larger transports [of repatriates] arrived, there was no time for meals or sleep.

Gradually by the end of 1948, the number of transports with relocated people grew smaller. Jadwiga returned to Warsaw and was appointed head of the social department of Polish Radio. Thanks to her efforts, Polish Radio built a new house, Dom Społeczny, literally the Community House, which had a day centre for toddlers, an infant school, and a health clinic which first functioned as a simple infirmary, but later acquired analytical labs and employed specialist doctors and physiotherapists. The two educational establishments for children boasted the highest standards in Warsaw. Jędrzejowska initiated the construction of two more Polish Radio facilities in Soplicowo and Śródborów, which hosted training courses for employees as well as summer camps for their pre-school children. Every year about a thousand children went on a six-week summer camp. There were summer camps and hiking camps for those of school age as well. Jędrzejowska’s achievements set the bar high for similar departments in other institutions. In 1951 she was appointed Secretary General of the National Broadcasting Office49 and continued working for the social department of Polish Radio. At that time she was a member of the executive committee and then deputy secretary of the company cell of the PZPR (Polish United Workers’ Party)50 in Polish Radio. In 1954, as head of the real estate department of the PTTK,51 she supervised package and proactive tourism in Poland. Later on, some of these tasks were taken over by the Central Committee for Physical Education and Tourism,52 where Jędrzejowska was employed until her retirement in December 1967.

For the rest of her life after the War, although she was seriously ill and still led a busy professional life, she never tired of efforts to help concentration camp survivors and former prisoners of Nazi German jails. She sat on the disability benefit board of the Warsaw branch of ZBoWiD,53 and was a co-founder and board member of a club of the former political prisoners of the Pawiak jail.54 For many years she was the club’s secretary, but she did much more for it than she was obliged to do. She was particularly concerned about the health and living conditions of ex-Pawiak prisoners. A list of all those whom she helped would be long: she sent her ex-inmates to good doctors and found them places in hospitals, sanatoriums or nursing homes. Even once she had provided for them, she would continue caring for those exhausted and sick women, staying at their bedside, doing their shopping, and inspiring them with hope and optimism, just as she had done in the prison many years before.

Through her efforts, one of the Warsaw schools was named after the Pawiak Heroes and opened a memorial room in their honour.

Jadwiga Jędrzejowska’s work for the common good and her humanitarian attitude had an impact on the life choices of her daughter. Hanna Jędrzejowska is an assistant professor in the Neurological Clinic of the Warsaw Medical Academy55 and her husband Andrzej Kułakowski is professor and head of the Surgical Clinic of the National Institute of Oncology in Warsaw. Jadwiga’s son Piotr Jędrzejowski is a medical student.

To the end of her life, even though she was very ill, Jadwiga hardly ever worried about herself. When she was unable to accomplish something personally, she delegated it to her friends.

Her funeral was held on 2 February 1978. She was buried in the section of the distinguished ZBoWiD activists.56 Among those paying their last respects were her colleagues and friends, who shall always remember her as a kind-hearted, noble and truly selfless person.

***

This biographical article is based on the following sources:

1) Jadwiga Jędrzejowska’s personal notes and documents;

2) conversations held with Jadwiga Jędrzejowska;

3) accounts given by Jędrzejowska’s fellow inmates and colleagues (Janina Ciechanowicz-Kłosowska, Maria Jaszczukowa, Maria Pągowska, Henryka Pychowa, Alina Przerwa-Tetmajer, Wanda Wróblewska, Wanda Wójcik-Michałowska and others);

4) notes and mentions in several books (e.g. Krata by Pola Gojawiczyńska, Cztery lata ostrego dyżuru by Anna Czuperska-Śliwicka, and Wspomnienia więźniów Pawiaka, an anthology edited by Anna Czuperska-Śliwicka).

 

***

Translated from original article: Szemińska, A. “Jadwiga Jędrzejowska.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1979.


Notes
  1. Not to be confused with her namesake, Jadwiga Jędrzejowska the tennis player.a
  2. Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, the Polish Socialist Party b
  3. Towarzystwo Uniwersytetu Robotniczego; literally the Association for the Workers’ University, which set up a network of socialist cultural and educational institutions.b
  4. ZNP, Związek Nauczycielstwa Polskiego.b
  5. At the time Poland was not an independent country, but had been partitioned by neighbouring powers, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, since 1795. For the 123 years of Poland’s subjugation, its people staged several uprisings against the “Tutelary” Powers, which were relentlessly suppressed. Poland’s independence was restored in 1918.a
  6. Pawiak—a Warsaw jailhouse, erected in 1830–1835. In 1939–1944 Pawiak was the largest jail for political prisoners in the German-occupied Poland. Pawiak was destroyed by the Nazi Germans during the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944.b
  7. Henryk Jędrzejowski (1897–1937), Polish physician and Communist activist, conducted research into radioactivity.b
  8. Bolesław Antoni Jędrzejowski (1867–1914), Polish socialist activist.b
  9. Stefan Żeromski (1864–1925), distinguished Polish novelist. b
  10. Andrzej Strug (1871–1937), Polish writer and journalist, Socialist and pro-independence activist.b
  11. Wacław Sieroszewski (1858–1945), Polish novelist.b
  12. Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937), Polish composer.b
  13. Bronisława Dłuska (1865–1939), sister of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, the first woman Nobel prizewinner (also the first to be awarded it twice).b
  14. Nadezhda Krupskaya (1869–1939), wife of Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov).b
  15. Vladimir Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, 1870–1924), Russian Communist politician, one of the organisers and leaders of the October Revolution, co-founder of the Bolshevik Party.b
  16. Boris Vigilev (1883–1924), Russian revolutionist and Communist. Initially operating in Moscow and Vilnius, he became a political emigrant and settled in Poland in 1908.b
  17. Ewa Prauss-Płoska (1913–1986), soldier of the Kedyw unit of the Home Army, intelligence officer in the Battalion Parasol, participant in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.b
  18. Stanisław Płoski (1899–1966), history professor, officer of the Home Army Headquarters, member of the Polish Socialist Party, participated in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.b
  19. The Central School Board.a
  20. Ludwik Wertenstein (1887–1945), Polish physician, student of Maria Curie-Skłodowska.b
  21. Maria Curie-Skłodowska (1867–1934), Polish physician and chemist, awarded with the Noble Prize for her research into radioactivity (alongside her husband in 1903), and, for the second time, for discovering polonium and radium.b
  22. Stanisław Lencewicz (1889–1944), Polish geograph, conducted clandestine lectures at the University of Warsaw. Died during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, murdered by a Nazi German soldier.b
  23. The Bibliothéque polonaise de Paris was founded by Polish émigrés in 1838 and is the oldest Polish institution outside Poland still conducting operations today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Library_in_Paris.a
  24. As of 1919, the KPP (Komunistyczna Partia Polski, Communist Party of Poland) was illegal in Poland because its members had sided with the Russian Bolsheviks who invaded Poland and wanted to change the newly restored Polish State into a Soviet republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Poland.a
  25. The Geophysical Observatory at Świder started its operations in 1915 and was the first observatory of its kind in Poland, conducting continuous measurements of the magnetic field strength of the Earth.b
  26. Małkinia is a small place near the River Bug, about 40 km north-east of Warsaw.a
  27. KPP members were victims of the purges ordered by Stalin in the 1930s. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Poland. The Department of the History of the [Communist] Party (Zakład Historii Partii, an institution investigating the history of the workers’ movement in Poland).a
  28. The PZPR (Polish United Workers’ Party) was the official name of the ruling Communist Party in the People’s Republic of Poland.b
  29. Janina Ciechanowicz-Kłosowska worked as a nurse in the MDK during the first days of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. See https://lekarzepowstania.pl/osoba/janina-ciechanowicz-klosowska/.a
  30. Alojzy Horak (1891–1943), Polish officer, veteran of the military campaign for the restoration of Poland’s independence during the First World War and of the defence campaign against the German invasion in September 1939. One of the pioneers of the Polish scouting movement. See https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alojzy_Horak.b
  31. ZWZ, Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union of Armed Struggle), one of the earliest Polish armed resistance organizations. Precursor of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa).a
  32. Bataliony Chłopskie (the Peasant Battalions), an armed resistance organisation operating in Occupied Poland during World War II and associated with the PSL party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataliony_Chłopskie.a
  33. Eugenia Mossakowska was later sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died. https://www.porta-polonica.de/pl/wojenne/kz-ravensbruck.a
  34. Maria Rosłońska (b. 1902) is listed as a civilian victim of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. https://www.1944.pl/ofiary-cywilne/maria-roslonska,37518.html.a
  35. Ludwika Uzar-Krysiakowa (1912–1944), a combatant in the rank of 2nd lieutenant in the Polish underground resistance movement. She was killed in action during the Warsaw Uprising (not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) on 20 September 1944. https://www.1944.pl/powstancze-biogramy/ludwika-uzar-krysiakowa,24819.html.a
  36. Zofia Döllinger (1909–1993), a qualified obstetrical nurse and combatant in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. https://www.1944.pl/powstancze-biogrby/zofia-dollinger,46939.html.a
  37. Armia Krajowa (AK, the Home Army) was the largest combat resistance organisation in occupied Europe during the Second World War.a
  38. Maria Zarębińska-Broniewska (1904–1947), Polish writer and actress, second wife of the poet Władysław Broniewski. Maria helped Jews escape from the ghetto and was sent to Auschwitz in 1943. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Zarębińska.a
  39. Maria Jaszczukowa (1915–2007), Polish lawyer, social activist, and politician during the Polish People’s Republic. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Jaszczukowa.a
  40. Probably Maria Pągowska (b. 1909), who was a nurse in the insurgents’ hospital at Koszykowa 78 during the 1944 Uprising. https://lekarzepowstania.pl/osoba/maria-pagowska.a
  41. Dr Alina Przerwa-Tetmajer (1915–1996), Auschwitz survivor. Paediatrician, chief physician of the surgical ward in Warsaw Children’s Hospital. During the War she treated wounded resistance fighters. See https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl/obraz/39637/https://www.podkowianskimagazyn.pl/nr38/tetmajer.htm and https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl/obraz/39637/.a
  42. When the War ended, millions of concentration camp survivors, ex-POWs, and ex-slave labourers found themselves stranded in Germany. For more information on displaced persons, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displaced_persons_camps_in_post%E2%80%93World_War_II_Europe.c
  43. Dom Pracy Kobiet.a
  44. The name is misprinted in the original Polish article.c
  45. Dom Szkoleniowy.a
  46. Ośrodek Szkoleniowo-Rolniczy.a
  47. The name of this place went through several changes. It is now called Miłków.a
  48. In the summer of 1944, when Germany’s defeat seemed imminent, Heinrich Himmler organised Unternehmen Werwolf, with groups of armed volunteers behind Allied lines. When the Polish borders were shifted west at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences (1945), Poland lost its pre-war eastern territories to Soviet Russia, but was “compensated” with former German territories in the west. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werwolf.a
  49. Centralny Urząd Radiofonii.a
  50. 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.a
  51. Polskie Towarzystwo Turystyczno-Krajoznawcze, the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Association.a
  52. Główny Komitet Kultury Fizycznej i Turystyki.a
  53. Związek Bojowników o Wolność i Demokrację (the Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy), the official war veterans’ association in the People’s Republic of Poland.a
  54. Klub byłych Więźniów Politycznych Pawiaka.a
  55. Now Warszawski Uniwersytet Medyczny, the Medical University of Warsaw.a
  56. Presumably in Warsaw’s Powązki Military Cemetery.a

a—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Head Translator for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; b—notes by Anna Marek, Expert Consultant for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; c—notes by Marta Kapera, the translator of the text.

      

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

See also

We use cookies to ensure you get the best browsing experience on our website. Refer to our Cookies Information and Privacy Policy for more details.