Jadwiga Lenartowicz Rylko

Jadwiga Lenartowicz-Rylko (1 October 1910 – 2 December 2010) was a Polish Catholic physician imprisoned in the Ravensbruck, Gross-Rosen, Neusalz, and Flossenbürg concentration camps operated by the German Third Reich during World War II. While Lenartowicz was incarcerated as a political prisoner, she was assigned to medically treat the prisoners held captive in Adolf Hitler's multiple Nazi concentration camps by working as a camp doctor. Lenartowicz was the daughter of a feldsher. As Lenartowicz grew up, she watched her father take care of his patients in the city of Łódź. She went on to follow in his footsteps going into the medicine. Once completed with medical school, she would go on to her residency at the Anna Maria Hospital. She followed in her father's footsteps, and began her medical training, albeit, she became a physician, not a feldsher. After 6 years, Lenartowicz became a physician in the Second Polish Republic after completing her medical studies in Poznań in 1936.

Education Lenartowicz attended Poznań University of Medical Sciences where she completed her medical education in 6 years. During her time in medical school, she was characterized as fun, playful, and silly. She was transported from Ravensbruck to Gross-Rosen concentration camp for Jewish female slave labor and assigned to medically treat women from sub-camps for textile factories, fields and production jobs. She was moved to Neusalz slave labor camp in Nowa Sól and from there sent on a death march. The women marched around 300 miles to Flossenbürg over 40 days. After 1945, Lenartowicz stayed at a displaced persons camp.

As a camp doctor, she was given better opportunity to survive. She was given a greater quantity for her meal, better quality clothing, better hygiene, and better overall treatment. On a daily basis, she would treat patients coming in with great oversight from SS doctors, holding her accountable of any person that was not truly sick. In her biography, she often recounts that the ethical lines in medicine were blurred due to the lack of supplies and brutality of the camps.