Barbara Warda

Barbara Warda, also known as Barbara Wardzianka, codenamed Stara (born 24 May 1912 in Warsaw, died 27 February 1999 in Warsaw), was a Polish nurse and physician. For most of her professional career, she was associated with the in Warsaw. Warda served as a soldier in the Home Army and participated in the Warsaw Uprising.

Biography

Youth and education Barbara Warda was born on 24 May 1912 in Warsaw, to Wincenty Warda and Malwina Mackiewicz. During her childhood and adolescence, she lived with her parents in Kutno. In 1931, she graduated from the Tadeusz Kościuszko Gymnasium in Gostynin.

From 1936, she studied at the Warsaw School of Nursing, earning her diploma in 1939. However, in the spring of 1939, Dr. , the director of , requested the school to recommend two of the best graduates from the class of 1939 for employment at his facility. Barbara Warda was one of those recommended. She started working at Wola Hospital on 1 April 1939 as a scrub nurse and head of the operating room.

Underground activities In September 1939, she remained in besieged Warsaw. Along with other staff members from Wola Hospital, she provided assistance to injured soldiers and civilian victims of German air raids and artillery fire.

During the occupation, she became involved in underground activities within the sanitary services of the Home Army. She adopted the codename Stara. She trained medics in secret courses organized at Wola Hospital. She participated in the operation to free Stanisław Miedza-Tomaszewski, who was transferred from Pawiak prison to Wola Hospital, where his death was faked during a supposed operation.

In 1943, she began her medical studies at the underground University of the Western Lands. At one point, surgeons Leon Manteuffel-Szoege and , as well as nurses Barbara Warda and Irena Dobrzańska, were taken from the column. The latter were directed to work at a German sanitary point on 53 Górczewska Street. Meanwhile, Dr. Zbigniew Woźniewski, one of the few doctors who survived the massacre the day before, managed, with the help of several surviving staff members and personnel brought from the burned Karol and Maria Children's Hospital, to resume operations at Wola Hospital. Initially, they provided care to patients who had not been expelled from the hospital by the Germans and treated survivors of the Wola massacre. Later, they also began to assist civilians who were being driven out of the city by the Germans along Wolska Street towards the Warszawa Zachodnia station. During her free moments from working at the German sanitary point, Warda contributed to the efforts at the Polish hospital.

She stayed at Wola Hospital until 25 August, after which she was moved with the German sanitary point to the Malta Hospital on . Whenever possible, she tried to return to , sometimes bringing back medicines and bandaging supplies taken from the Malta Hospital.

At one point, at the request of two young Polish forced laborers, she went to the basement of a nearby tenement to find them some clean clothes. However, the Germans became suspicious that she was passing information to insurgents who carried out a raid on German positions that same night at Bank Square. Consequently, she was accused of espionage and brought before a German military court. Thanks to the testimony of a German non-commissioned officer, who confirmed that she had gone to the basement solely in search of clothing, the court issued an acquittal. On 23 September, despite the prohibitions of the Gestapo from the so-called Sonderkommando Spilker, she extricated 13 prisoners – soldiers of the Home Army – who had been detained there. They were subsequently disguised as civilian patients and evacuated from the city later that same day, with the exception of two in the most critical condition.

By the end of October 1944, Wola Hospital was evacuated from Warsaw. For the following several months, she worked at one of its branches, which was established in the suburb of Pszczelin (near Brwinów).

Post-war fate On 18 January 1945, upon hearing news of the Soviet offensive and the German retreat from Warsaw, she set out on foot with a group of Wola Hospital staff toward the ruined capital. They arrived the next day.

After the war, she continued working at Wola Hospital. Dr. offered her the position of head nurse, but Warda decided to pursue the medical studies she had begun during the occupation, while also working as a surgical assistant at the hospital.

Her nursing cap is one of the exhibits at the Warsaw Rising Museum.

Warsaw Uprising Cross Silver Cross of Merit Cross of the Home Army Medal of the 10th Anniversary of People's Poland (13 January 1955) Gold Silver Commemorative Medal Four Centuries of Warsaw as the Capital

She also received a North Korean decoration.