Resistance member during World War II (1910?1973)
Irena Adamowicz
Irena Adamowicz
(11 May 1910 ? 12 August 1973), was a Polish-born scout leader and a resistance member during World War II. She was a courier for the underground
Home Army
(
Armia Krajowa
). In 1985, Adamowicz was posthumously bestowed the title of the
Righteous Among the Nations
by
Yad Vashem
in Jerusalem for her activities involving providing information to a number of Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland.
Biography
[
edit
]
Adamowicz was born in
Warsaw
, to a
Polish noble family
and held a degree in
social work
from the
University of Warsaw
before World War II.
[1]
She served as one of the leaders of the
Polish Scout movement
(
Harcerz Polski
) coordinating its activities as a Senior Girl Scout. A Polish
Roman Catholic
, Adamowicz provided counseling and educational services not only for the Catholic Scouts, but also for the Jewish youth movement called
Hashomer Hatzair
(Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir) in the 1930s, working in close co-operation with
Arie Wilner
.
[
citation needed
]
Following the
German invasion of Poland
, Adamowicz became a member of the underground
Home Army
(
Armia Krajowa
) as a clandestine courier. She delivered messages and
provided aid
and moral support for the Jewish ghettos in several distant cities.
[2]
In 1985, Adamowicz was posthumously bestowed the title of the
Righteous Among the Nations
by
Yad Vashem
in Jerusalem for her heroic stand against the Nazi
Holocaust
.
[2]
[3]
Liaison missions
[
edit
]
Due to her work for both Polish and Jewish youth before the invasion of Poland, and her close contact with the Jewish Zionist movement, Adamowicz, a devout Christian, was able to come to the aid of
Jewish Fighting Organization
's efforts to establish a channel of communication between the ghettos of different cities. At a meeting in Warsaw in late 1941 a decision was made to embark on this perilous effort, by the representatives of
AK
including Irena Adamowicz and Stanislaw Hajduk, and, on the Jewish side, by
Mordechaj Anielewicz
,
Icchak Cukierman
, Jozef Kapłan and
Cywia Lubetkin
. Throughout the summer of 1942 Adamowicz went on a daring trip across Poland and
Lithuania
to establish contact between clandestine organizations in the ghettos of Warsaw, Wilno (now
Vilnius
),
Białystok
, Kowno (now
Kaunas
) and Szawle (
?iauliai
). Her visits became a source of both vital information and moral encouragement, such as her inspirational presence in
Kovno Ghetto
in July 1942. She earned a Jewish nickname "Di chalutzishe
shikse
", the Pioneering Gentile.
[2]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
Following the end of World War II, Adamowicz remained in close contact with the survivors of the Holocaust, with whom she had worked in the Jewish underground. Thanks to their efforts, she was named Righteous among the Nations in 1985. Her personal experience became a part of the book by
Władysław Bartoszewski
and
Zofia Lewin
[
pl
]
entitled
Righteous Among Nations; How Poles Helped the Jews, 1939?1945.
[9]
[10]
- ^
Irena Adamowicz: Sprawiedliwy w?rod Narodow ?wiata.
Archived
12 November 2016 at the
Wayback Machine
MH?P, Warsaw.
- ^
a
b
c
Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies,
Adamowicz, Irena
at www.yadvashem.org
- ^
Righteous Among the Nations Recognized by Yad Vashem as of 1 January 2010. (pdf 1.55MB)
Archived
17 August 2012 at the
Wayback Machine
Note:
the direct link changed at source with YV annual update, search
yadvashem.org/poland.pdf
if present link discontinued
- ^
Abraham J. Edelheit (1994).
History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary
. Avalon Publishing. p. 218.
ISBN
978-0-8133-2240-7
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
"March of the Living Canada 2008"
. Archived from the original on 13 May 2008
. Retrieved
18 August
2013
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link
)
- ^
Kovno Righteous Gentiles
- ^
Yitzhak Zuckerman, Barbara Harshav,
A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising p. 493
1993 University of California Press, 702 pages,
ISBN
0-520-07841-1
- ^
Month in Holocaust: August
Archived
9 March 2005 at
archive.today
2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority
- ^
Bartoszewski & Lewin,
Righteous Among Nations; How Poles Helped the Jews, 1939?1945
. London, Earlscourt Publications Ltd, 1969. (lxxxvii, 834) Includes first-person testimony by Adamowicz. ASIN: B000NUN16C
- ^
Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: "Forget You Not",
Irena Adamowicz
Holocaust Remembrance, Sanctuary, and Beyond ...
References
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