Hanna Hirszfeldowa (17.07.1884–20.02.1964)

Hirszfeldowa studied medicine in Montpellier and Berlin. During World War I, she was a military doctor in the Serbian army. Following the war’s end, she was the head of the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Warsaw. After the outbreak of World War II, she and her husband, Ludwik Hirszefld, lived on the ‘Aryan’ side (thanks to the intercession of the German doctor, Dr. Kochmann). From February 1941, due to the orders of the Governor General Hans Frank, the couple was forced to move to the Warsaw Ghetto, where Hanna Hirszfeldowa was the head of the infant ward of the branch of the Berson and Bauman hospital in Leszno. There, despite the difficult situation, she tried to fight various diseases, including tuberculosis, typhus and hunger. In the summer of 1942, together with her husband and other family members, she managed to get to the ‘Aryan’ side. In February 1943, their daughter Maria died. The Hirszfelds hid, among others places, in Stara Miłosna, on Złota Street and in the village of Lipka.

After the end of the war, Hirszfeldowa and her husband moved to Wrocław, where she started working at the Medical Faculty of the University of Wrocław. From 1954, prof. Hirszfeldowa was the head of the Department of Diagnostics, Department of Paediatrics, and the Medical Academy. Together with her husband, she participated in research on blood groups. She died on February 20, 1964 in Wrocław.

translated by Adam Grossman