'Polish Jewish Women for the Independent Poland'

The POLIN Museum, in partnership with the Totalizator Sportowy Fund, is implementing the project 'Polish Jewish Women for the Independent Poland' running from 1 January to 30 November 2024. The project takes a closer look at the biographies of 20 prominent women of Jewish origin

who have played a significant role in the development of culture and science over the last 100 years and who have also taken part in the struggle for Poland's independence. They include writers, artists, academics, social activists and combatants who actively supported independence aspirations both as members of women's branches of the Polish Military Organisation or the Women's Voluntary Legion and as participants in the resistance movement during the Second World War, couriers, liaison officers, and combatants fighting in the Warsaw Ghetto and in the ranks of the Home Army.

History would not be possible without the participation of women, yet their role, activities, and impact on the course of history are generally forgotten or overlooked. This is even more the case for Jewish women, which remains a consequence of the unimaginable tragedy that was the Holocaust and the subsequent 'erasure' of Jewish history from textbooks, public spaces, and collective consciousness.

We want to fill this gap by reminding the wider audience how many female patriots of Jewish origins made a lasting and significant contribution to the Polish statehood and the country's cultural and scientific heritage.

We started the series with the biography of Barbara Temkin-Berman, librarian, author of 'Dziennik z podziemia' ('Diary from the Underground'), tirelessly organising children's libraries in the ghetto and, after leaving the ghetto, a participant in the resistance movement. Together with her husband Adolf Berman she helped e.g., Emanuel Ringelblum to leave the ghetto and then, together with Home Army activists, also to leave the labour camp in Trawniki.

The important female figures, whose biographies can already be read on the Virtual Shtetl portal, include:

Irena Tuwim – poet and translator of children literature, known for her iconic translation of Winnie the Pooh

Stefania Zahorska – a distinguished erudite writer, critic and film theorist, who was described as an 'intellectual grande dame', marked by her 'sober, mature and truly European intellectualism.'
Irena Krzywicka– writer, journalist whose progressive views on the availability of contraception, the legalisation of abortion, and sex education earned her a reputation as a scandalist in the inter-war period.
Jadwiga Grabowska – long-standing director of 'Moda Polska' fashion enterprise, discoverer of many well-known designers, sometimes referred to as the 'Napoleon in a skirt', 'leader of Polish fashion' or 'Polish Coco Chanel.'
Helena Syrkus – Professor of Architecture, author of many architectural projects before and after the Second World War.
Paulina (Ola) Wat – translator and writer, remembered mainly as the guardian of the legacy of her husband, the eminent poet Aleksander Wat (1900-1967).
Helena Feldstein – social and independence activist, teacher, member of the Women's League, posthumously awarded the Cross and Medal of Independence.
Alicja Lichtenbaum, pseud. Lila – member of the Polish Military Organisation, participant in the Warsaw Uprising.
Chasia Bornstein-Bielicka – participant in the resistance movement and armed struggles in Grodno and Białystok, liaison officer, courier, organiser of orphanages for war orphans in Łódź.
Chajka Klinger – participant in the resistance movement in the Będzin ghetto, author of diaries documenting the resistance movement in the Silesian Basin.
Zofia Woźna (Bala Leser) – sculptor, painter, one of the first students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
Franciszka Themerson – painter, first illustrator of 'Kaczka Dziwaczka' ('Weird Duck')
Eliza Unger – architect, designer of many modernist buildings in Gdynia and Warsaw
Magdalena Gross-Zielińska – sculptor, known for her beautiful sculptures of animals from the Warsaw Zoo
Maria Feldman– translator of literary fiction
Maria Orwid – Professor of psychiatry, pioneer of family therapy
Helena Radlińska – sociologist, precursor of social pedagogy in Poland.
Irena Conti di Mauro – participant in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising
Alicja Zipper – participant in the Warsaw Uprising