In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

159 Eugenia Swital Rurarz was a high-ranking official in postwar Poland. He served as advisor to Edward Gierek and as Polish ambassador to Japan. He now lives in the United States. EUGENIA SWITAL My husband, Stanislaw, received his medical degree in May 1939, three months before the outbreak of World War II. The war began at the time he was an intern in the Wolski Hospital in Warsaw. After signing up for service with the regional draft board, he worked from September 1 to November 1 as a physician in military hospitals in Lublin and in other localities. After his return to occupied Warsaw, he applied for work as a physician with the municipal Department of Health and Welfare. Nearly one month later, on December 10, he became a member of an underground organization, Polska Niepodlegla (Independent Poland), that later became a part of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army). As a soldier of the Home Army, he conducted courses on sanitation, gave medical attention to participants in many armed actions, and treated soldiers in the resistance movement. Until the creation of the Warsaw ghetto in November 1940, Stanislaw Swital cared for the medical needs of the Jewish people who had been driven out of villages and towns near Warsaw by the Germans . His friend, Janusz Korczak, noted educational theoretician and writer of Jewish origin, presented Stanislaw with one of his books and thanked him for his dedicated work as a physician. When the Germans enclosed the ghetto of Warsaw with a wall, it did not keep Stanislaw from his activities as a physician among the Jews, profiting from the regular pass he had received as a public health physician. During the sixty-three days of the Warsaw Uprising, which broke out on August I, 1944, he held the position of deputy to the chief health phYSician of Warsaw's Home Army. After the collapse of the uprising, he returned to his family in Boernerowo near Warsaw, where he worked at a small hospital. On November 15, 1944, a young woman, unknown to my husband , came to him and showed him a short letter signed Bartosz. Dr. 160 Out of the Inferno Leslaw W~grzynowski, his superior in the uprising, went by that pseudonym. W~grzynowski asked for assistance in a matter that the young woman was to explain to my husband. The young woman explained that she had come to my husband to get his help for a group of insurgents-five men and two womenwho , to escape captivity, had hidden themselves in the cellar of a one-story house on Promyk Street, in the Zolib6rz section of Warsaw. Since this building was important to the Germans to rebuild their defenses, there was a high probability that the insurgents would be discovered and murdered by the enemy. The woman, who revealed herself later as Alicja Margolis, was a liaison officer of the Jewish resistance movement. She got through German positions by a stroke of luck. In Grodzisk Mazowiecki, she had contacted Dr. W~gr­ zynowski about the matter. Stanislaw Swital decided to take action to rescue the people. He proposed the matter to seven of the staff of the hospital. All of those who discussed the matter privately with him replied affirmatively to the question: "Are you prepared to die?" In the end, he selected five of them. After providing the volunteers and Margolis with certificates and arm bands of the Red Cross, Swital sent them out with two pairs of stretchers to Promyk Street in Zolib6rz with the aim of bringing back the insurgents. In case the Germans stopped and interrogated them, or if they passed through German outposts, the rescuers were to explain that this group of Red Cross workers operated under the orders of a German officer who, during his visit to the hospital in Boemerowo, had ordered that the sick people at the Promyk Street address should be taken away. The circumstances favored the complete success of the action. At twelve o'clock the Germans who worked on fortifications in the area went to dinner. The brave rescuers were Kazimierz Sylkiewicz and his wife Maria, Barbara Kinkiel, Zbigniew Sciwiarski, Janusz Os~ka,and Alicja Margolis. The rescued group of insurgents turned out to be survivors of both the Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising. There were both soldiers and commanders, one of whom was Marek Edelman of the Jewish Fighting Organization. The others were Icchak Cukierman ("Antek"), Celina Lubetkin-Cukierman ("Celina"), Marek Edelman, Tuwie Borzykowski...

Share