Resistance activist during World War II, heroine of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
She was born the youngest of seven siblings in 1923 in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, where she graduated from a Jewish primary school. Her father, a wagon and horse owner, was a freight transporter. In 1939, the Grynszpan family moved to Warsaw, but Pnina returned to Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki in the early spring of 1941 and lived in the Pisaki ghetto. During this time, she worked cutting down trees in Modlin. In June 1941, she moved to Legionowo and then to Warsaw to live with her brother Dawid. In the autumn of the same year, Pnina was joined by her mother and brother Zygmunt. All three siblings worked in the carpentry workshop in Landau's shed at 75-79 Gęsia Street.
At the end of 1942, thanks to Hersz Berliński, Pnina joined the Jewish Combat Organization, and in December 1942, the Pnina "five" clandestine unit was formed on the grounds of Landau's shop. After armed clashes between the ZOB and the Germans in January 1943, the combat groups were disbanded, and Pnina found herself on the grounds of the Brushmakers' Shop on Świętojerska Street. After the uprising's collapse, on May 10, 1943, she managed to escape from the ghetto through the sewers on Prosta Street, along with surviving ŻOB fighters in a group led by Szymon Ratajzer "Kazik." She was transported to the forests near Łomianki, near Warsaw. Until July 1944, she fought with partisans in the Wyszków forests.
Just before the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, she returned to Warsaw, where she hid in a rented apartment at 24 Rakowiecka Street with three ŻOB members. After the outbreak of the uprising, she was arrested by the Germans and taken to Aleja Szucha. She was released along with other Polish women and defected to the insurgents, but was detained again, this time by the insurgents, who accused her of espionage. She was saved by an officer who knew her brother, but she was forced to stay in the apartment with other Jews and was regularly checked.
After the uprising's collapse, she remained in Warsaw, hiding in the ruins. She emerged from hiding only on January 22 or 23, 1945. She fought briefly as a liaison in a group of the People's Army. In March 1945, she left Poland and made her way to Palestine via Romania. She settled in Tel Aviv, where she married Chaim Frymer, who also fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. She died on November 17, 2016.
Pnina Grynszpan-Frymer | Ghetto Fighters' House
