Orwid Maria – (23.07.1930, Przemyśl - 09.02.2009, Kraków) – a psychiatrist, professor at the Jagiellonian University.

She came from the assimilated Jewish family of Adolf and Klara Pfeffer. She spent most of her childhood in Przemyśl, growing up in a multi-generational family. They lived in the centre of Przemyśl, at 2 Plac Na Bramie. Her father was a lawyer. Since an early age, he gave his daughter a lot of attention, especially in matters concerning education. Next to the living area, the house included Adolf Pfeffer's first law office. Maria grew up in an environment full of individuality and frequent discussions.

"Every evening, apart from Saturdays, we used to go to my Weinstock grandparents who lived not far from our house at 6 Mickiewicza Street, in the so-called Eisnerówka. (…) Grandma's friends lived all around. Her home was always bustling and pleasant. The whole family and various friends came."

She attended a public school with the rights of a state school, where the language of instruction was Polish, but pupils also learned Hebrew and the principles of Judaism on a daily basis. When she started school, she was aware of what was going on around her.

"I started my first year of primary school in 1937. It was a horrible time. At the Lviv Polytechnic, a Jewish student was thrown out of a window. This was followed by his manifest funeral. Bench ghettos were established at universities. (…) This was a time of real terror, and the adults didn't try to hide anything from me."

In the summer of 1939, nine-year-old Maria spent her holidays with her mother in Muszyna near Krynica. The holiday was interrupted by a dramatic phone call from her father and an order to immediately return to Przemyśl. Shortly afterwards, the Second World War broke out, which changed the living conditions for Maria and her loved ones forever. In June 1941, after the German invasion, a dramatic time began for the entire family. In the spring of 1942, the Pfeffer family was forcibly relocated to the Przemyśl ghetto. On 20 July 1942, the ghetto was closed and the "displaced persons" operations began. They resulted in the deaths of Maria's grandparents, the Weinstocks, as well as a large part of her family.
In the autumn of 1942, before the liquidation action, Marysia and her parents escaped from the ghetto. They were hiding with "Aryan papers" in Lviv. There, in 1943, Marysia's beloved father died; from then on, she remained under her mother's care. On 27 July 1944, the Germans were removed from Lviv. After the end of hostilities, Maria's mother remarried to Daniel Herzhaft, who took on a new surname - Orwid.

At the beginning of 1945, Maria, her mother and her new husband moved to Kraków, where they stayed temporarily at the Hotel Polonia, similarly to many other people arriving from Lviv. Maria was adopted by "Papa Orwid". She resumed her studies, interrupted by the occupation, at the Ursuline Secondary School in Kraków. After her matura exam in 1948, on the advice of Stanisław Lem, who was a friend of the family, she entered the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University instead of studying philosophy as she had previously planned. She later often recalled meeting the future writer, then still a student of medicine, admitting that Lem had a strong influence on shaping her views.

Even as a teenager, she attended meetings of the Zionist left-wing organisation Ha-Szomer ha-Cair for a while, and even thought about emigrating to Palestine and later Israel. Paradoxically, at the same time, she concealed her Jewish identity during public meetings, mainly as a result of her parents' recommendations, fearing the negative consequences of revealing her origins. After passing her matura exam, she changed her behaviour, often introducing herself in a demonstrative manner as: "Marysia Orwid, Jew". During her studies, she was a member of the Union of Polish Academic Youth, where she did not hide her origins. Her openness in speaking about her Jewish identity, as well as her leftist views, remained true to the end.

During her time at the Medical University of Kraków, she had the opportunity to study with a team led by Prof. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972). After graduating with a major in psychiatry, she got a job at the Kraków Psychiatric Clinic run by Kępiński, who became her teacher and master for the next few years. Under his guidance, she initially worked on the psychopathology of schizophrenia, studying, among other things, the phenomenon described as autism.

Between 1959 and 1964, Maria Orwid and Antoni Kępiński created the so-called Oswięcim Programme, concerning research on the mental effects of concentration camp experiences on former prisoners. The programme constituted one of the first studies of post-camp trauma in the world. She also conducted research concerning the second and third generation of Polish Jews whose parents were in ghettos, camps, or in hiding during the war. She participated in changes aimed at reforming the Kraków Psychiatric Clinic consisting of introducing the principles of a therapeutic community as well as group and individual psychotherapy. It was thanks to her that the initial studies on group psychotherapy were published in Poland. The subject of her 1963 doctoral dissertation consisted in the problems of social adaptation of former Auschwitz prisoners to post-camp life.

The following stage of her training and research consisted in a visit to the London Institute of Psychiatry in the mid-1960s, where she had the opportunity to study adolescent psychiatry at the Tyson Unit, led by Dr. Wilfried Warren, the founder of this branch of psychiatry in the UK. At the time, Maria Orwid was also training in terms of group psychotherapy under Dr. Bob Hobson. On her return to the country, she set up an adolescent psychiatry unit at the Clinic, taking advantage of the principles of therapeutic community and psychotherapy.

The following step in treating young people with mental disorders has been to include work with families. Maria Orwid, together with psychologist Dr. Wanda Badura-Madej, undertook research concerning the relationships in families of young patients hospitalised in the unit. The results of this research formed the basis of her postdoctoral habilitation dissertation "Sytuacja rodzinna młodzieży z zaburzeniami psychotycznymi niepsychotocznymi". She submitted it twice. First in 1971, then in 1975, to finally pass the postdoctoral examination in 1976. She was then awarded the academic rank of associate professor.

Maria Orwid further expanded her scientific workshop as a psychiatrist and her methodology of working with families in an international group of specialists under the supervision of Yrjö Alanen from the University of Turku, taking advantage of a World Health Organisation scholarship. Prof. Orwid founded Poland's first Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic in 1978, which she ran until 2000. Heading the clinic, she was awarded the academic title of Professor in 1989.

Orwid was the co-founder of the model of multiprofessional teams in psychiatry and co-authored the first papers on the psychological effects of wartime camp experiences. She participated in the works of the Scientific Section of Family Therapy of the Polish Psychiatric Association and the Polish-Israeli Mental Health Association. She was the creator of a therapy project for Holocaust survivors and the second generation. At the end of the twentieth century, she returned to research concerning the aftermath of trauma when she addressed, among other things, the late psychological effects of the Second World War among Jews and Roma. Having taught psychiatry as well as child and adolescent psychiatry in the curriculum of the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University's Collegium Medicum, she also co-authored the postgraduate curriculum. After 2000, she headed the postgraduate training program at the Department of Psychiatry in Kraków.

Being a member of the Polish Psychiatric Society, she participated in the founding of this Society's Scientific Section of Psychotherapy. She was also a co-author of the training programme in psychotherapy and the procedures for recognising qualifications for its self-administration, which the Section was the first to develop. She also founded the Scientific Section of Family Therapy of the Polish Psychiatric Association and became its first chairperson. In recognition of her merits, the Polish Psychiatric Association awarded her the dignity of an honorary member. Prof. Orwid was also an honorary member of the European Family Therapy Association. She was a founding member of the International Family Therapy. She was actively involved with the Deutsche Akademie für Psychoanalyse and was also one of the founders and board members of the Word Association for Dynamic Psychiatry. Maria Orwid also deserves credit for organising the World Congress of Family Therapy in Kraków in 1990 and the World Congress of Dynamic Psychiatry in 2005. She educated many pupil-successors who continue her work.

Maria Orwid was also an active member of the Association of Children of the Holocaust and the Jewish Religious Community in Kraków. When the idea of reactivating the B'nai B'rith movement in Poland was born - she became a founding member in 2007. She supported many charitable initiatives and stood on the side of the discriminated, regularly participating in Marches for Tolerance. Despite her immense commitment to academic work and charitable activities, she found time for an intensive social life among the intellectual and artistic bohemia of Kraków, was friends with artists, and belonged to the group of regulars and friends of the "Piwnica pod Baranami".

She made a kind of summary of her life, including several aspects of her scientific activity, with the publication in 2006 of her memoirs Przeżyć... i co dalej. The publication was divided into two parts - memories of her childhood and youth, and a conversation about her adult life, conducted with her by Katarzyna Zimmerer and Krzysztof Szwajca.
One of her final challenges was applying for the posthumous title of Righteous Among the Nations for Teofila Kic, the woman who kept Maria and her mother in her flat in Przemyśl when they escaped from the ghetto. The title ceremony took place on 22 December 2008 in Kraków.

She died as a result of illness on 9 February 2009. Two days later, on 11 February, she was buried in the Jewish cemetery at Miodowa Street in Kraków. The funeral was attended by representatives of academia, the Jewish community, and former patients of Prof. Orwid. A representation of the Roma community, with whom the professor worked for many years, also attended the funeral.

She has received numerous awards for her attitude and achievements - including the Cross of Merit (04.10.1974) and Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (05.09.1984). On 11 March 1985, she was awarded the Golden Badge "For Social Work for the City of Kraków". An important role in commemorating the activities of Prof. Orwid was played by the Kraków Foundation for the Development of Psychotherapy, which was established in 1991 as the first of its kind in Poland. It aims to promote psychotherapy, help education in the field, and develop family therapy. Maria Orwid was the Chairperson of the Foundation's Council from 1991 to 2009. The members of the Foundation decided to name the organisation after her, so it currently constitutes a tribute to one of the most important figures for the development of psychiatry in Poland.

dr Edyta Gawron

References

• Archive of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków CMUJ DSO, Maria Orwid 1954-2009, vol. 1-2.
• Bomba J., Maria Orwid, "Psychiatria Polska" 2009, No. 2, pp. 253-256.
• Orwid M., Przeżyć... i co dalej, Kraków 2006.
• Orwid M., Psychiatryczne i społeczne następstwa pobytu w obozie koncentracyjnym Oświęcim-Brzezinka, Kraków 1962.
• Orwid M., Sytuacja rodzinna a powstawanie zaburzeń psychicznych u młodzieży dojrzewającej, Kraków 1975.
• Orwid M., Trauma, Kraków 2009.
• Orwid M., Gątarski J., Dominik M., Wyniki badania psychiatrycznego i elektroencefalograficznego 130 byłych więźniów Oświęcimia-Brzezinki  [in] "Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim" 1969, pp. 25-28.
• Orwid M., Pietruszewski K., Psychiatria dzieci i młodzieży, Kraków 1993.
• Zioło A., Krakowianki. Twarze polskiej herstorii, Kraków 2024.

The biography was created as part of the project "Polskie Żydówki dla Niepodległej" (Polish Jewish Women for the Independent), implemented with a grant from the Totalizator Sportowy Foundation.