Ewa Heller-Ekbad’s visits the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital

There is no other person of such merit for the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital as Anna Braude-Hellerowa, who has been affiliated with the institution since 1914. It was due to her persistent efforts that the Hospital was reopened in 1930, where she had become physician-in-chief two years prior. She stayed with the patients and staff until the very end and died, most likely during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. She was once described by the Hospital’s director Henryk Kroszczor as an incredibly honest and kind person, “with a huge amount of energy and some sort of inner flame radiating outwards”.

Her granddaughter Ewa Heller was born in 1940. Although she has no memory of it, she lived on the premises of the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital with her parents and grandmother. It was probably Anna Braude-Heller who, in 1942, organised their escape to the so-called Aryan side and the placing the little Ewa in the Felician Sisters’ orphanage in Wawer. Braude-Heller’s son, Arie Leo, his wife and daughter all managed to survive the Holocaust. They emigrated to Sweden in 1946.

After more than 80 years, Anna Braude-Heller’s granddaughter returned to the former Hospital. The meeting with Ewa Heller-Ekblad was a beautiful and deeply moving opportunity to talk about her family’s history, the question of memory and the history of the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital. We also introduced our Guest to the project of the future headquarters of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum. We very much hope to see her again at the opening of the Museum!

It was an extraordinary honour to have Ewa Heller, who resides in Sweden by day, visit us. Our guest was also greeted by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Hanna Wróblewska, and the Director of the Department of Cultural Heritage, Piotr Rypson.

We will soon publish a film transcript of the conversation with Ms Ewa Heller-Ekblad, so that you too can get to know her story.