Pediatrician, doctor of medical sciences, social and political activist, and Warsaw councilor. From 1930 to 1942, she was the head physician of the Bersohn and Bauman Children's Hospital.
Anna Braude-Hellerowa was born Chana Rywka Braude on January 6, 1888, in Warsaw. Her father, Arie Lejb Braude, came from Grodno and was a wealthy silk merchant. Her mother, Tauba, née Litwin, came from Białystok. She was remembered as a beautiful woman with impeccable taste and a clear mind. Anna was the eldest of four siblings – she had three sisters: Róża Sara, Estera, and Judyta.
Anna Braude-Hellerowa | from the Jewish Historical Institute collection
"Her temperamental figure of small stature, her elongated face with large, dark eyes, smooth hair so black it was almost navy blue, her quick gait and deep contralto voice testified to a tremendous amount of energy and some inner flame radiating outward," wrote Judith Braude about her sister.
Anna studied at the Fryderyka Thalgrün School. She resigned after a conflict with the principal, defending her poor classmates. She passed her matriculation examination externally in 1906 in Kiev. Despite her mother's objections, she went to university. She studied philosophy at the University of Geneva and then medicine in Zurich. There, she joined the Bund. At the end of her studies, she moved to Berlin, where she specialized in pediatrics. After passing her exams in Saint Petersburg and obtaining her license, she worked for a year as a land physician in the Moscow Governorate.
In 1913, she returned to Warsaw. Before the outbreak of World War I, she began working at the Bersohn and Bauman Children's Hospital on Śliska Street, a position she remained associated with for the rest of her life.
From a young age, she was exceptionally active in the community. In 1915, she co-founded the Society of Friends of Children in Warsaw, and from 1919 to 1923, she served as director of the pediatric nurses' school, which she co-founded. She also ran Mother and Child Care Centers. At the Society of Friends of Children, she collaborated with Henryk Kroszczor, later administrative director of both the Society and the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital. She also co-founded the Włodzimierz Medem Sanatorium for Children in Miedzeszyn and served as a Warsaw city councilor.
In 1916, she married engineer Eliezer Heller. They had two sons: the elder, Ari Leib, and the younger, Alexander, who died at the age of five. It was a tragedy that marked her entire life – the experienced doctor failed to diagnose appendicitis in her own child. She went into mourning, a state she never recovered from. In 1934, during a routine surgical procedure, her husband also died.
The Heller family first lived at 13 Leszno Street (now 93 Solidarności Avenue), and later—until their forced relocation to the ghetto—at 5/3 Szpitalna Street. Arik, Anna's son, recalled running to the tenement house across the street, where he would buy sweets for a few groszy at the Wedel store. He also remembered the warmth of the tiled stoves and the balcony from which he watched the pulsating life of the city.
When the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital closed in 1923 for financial reasons, Anna Braude-Hellerowa sought support, raised funds, and organized fundraising events. Thanks to her efforts and the involvement of the Society of Friends of Children, the hospital was expanded according to the design of architect Henryk Stifelman and reopened in 1930 as a facility of the Society. At the time, it was one of the most modern hospitals in Warsaw. From 1928, after winning the competition, Anna Braude-Hellerowa served as the head physician and head of the infant ward.
She remained at the hospital during the Siege of Warsaw in September 1939 and in the following months. After the establishment of the ghetto, when the hospital found itself within its borders, she directed it until its final liquidation in August 1942. She lived on the hospital grounds with her sisters, Róża and Judyta, and the family of her son Arik—his wife, Maria née Natanblut, and their young daughter, Ewa, born in April 1940.
In the ghetto, she co-led clandestine teaching and student internships. She headed the Health Commission at the Judenrat and co-authored research on starvation disease, the results of which were published in 1946.
Most of her relatives – except for her sister Róża – managed to leave the ghetto and hide on the so-called Aryan side. Anna Braude-Hellerowa refused to leave the ghetto walls. She stayed with the sick. The circumstances of her death are unknown. She likely perished along with the patients and hospital staff in the bunker at 6 Gęsia Street in May 1943 during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Her sister Róża Sara Aftergut likely perished with her. Judyta Braude wrote after the war in her account, submitted to Yad Vashem, that Anna had potassium cyanide on her person. She hoped she had managed to use it. Anna Braude-Hellerowa was posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari.
