Wanda Ossowska (1912-2001) and Stanislawa Leszczynska (1896-1974): Polish nurses working under Nazi Occupation

Abstract

Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on 1 September 1939 and World War II began on 3 September. Polish nurses have their place in this difficult history. In the first months of occupation, nurses focused on caring for wounded soldiers. In order to protect them from prisoner-of-war camps and execution, nurses sought safe havens for the wounded in private homes and transported them there. After their regular jobs, the nurses visited them, changed their dressings and provided them with civilian clothes so that soldiers could eventually escape. This paper describes the work of two of these nurses, Wanda Ossowska and Stanisława Leszczynska. The first three authors (BD, SH, AJS) were nurses in Poland at that time and they present some of the information in this paper as primary source data.