Serbia was a prison for women, located in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

at 26 Dzielnej Street adjacent to the

Pawiak Pawiak () was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Congress Poland. During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia. During the World War II German occupation of ...

prison. It was built by the Russian occupiers of Poland.

History

The building was built between 1830 and 1835 to be a criminal prison for women. From 1877 to 1878 it served as a military hospital, and acquired its name because of the

Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) The Russo-Turkish wars (or Ottoman–Russian wars) were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in European histor ...

(also known as the Serbian war). After 1863 the building was a political prison for women, and among the prisoners were,

Hanka Ordonówna Hanka Ordonówna or Ordonka (born Maria Anna Pietruszyńska; 4 August 1902 in Warsaw – 8 September 1950 in Beirut) was a Polish singer, dancer and actress. She began her career at the age of 16 in a Warsaw cabaret named Sfinks and then the thea ...

, Ina Benita, Irena Iłłakowicz,

Lidia Wysocka Lidia Wysocka (June 24, 1916 – January 2, 2006) was a Polish stage, film and voice actress, singer, cabaret performer and creative director, theatre director and costume designer, editorialist. Filmography In 1934 she dubbed Madeleine Carroll ...

Maja Berezowska Maja Berezowska (13 April 1893 or 1898, in Baranowicze – 31 May 1978, in Warsaw) was a Polish painter. Berezowska was born in Baranowicze, in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), to Polish parents Edmund Ber ...

Maria Koszutska Maria Karolina Sabina Koszutska (pseudonym ''Wera Kostrzewa'') (2 February 1876, Główczyn – 9 July 1939, Moscow) was a leader and theoretician of the Polish Socialist Party "Left" faction ''(Polska Partia Socialistyczna, PPS — Lewic ...

, Maria Rutkiewicz, Mary Berg, Nathalie Zand,

Pola Gojawiczyńska Pola Gojawiczyńska, real name Apolonia Gojawiczyńska, née Koźniewska (1 April 1896 – 29 March 1963) was a Polish writer. Biography Early life She was born in Warsaw as a daughter of a craftsman-carpenter. She studied in a public schoo ...

Teresa Bogusławska Teresa Bogusławska (13 July 1929 - 1 February 1945) was a Polish poet and a participant in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1941 she joined the resistance movement. In February 1944 was arrested by the Gestapo, imprisoned in the Pawiak Pawiak () w ...

, Zofia Chądzyńska, and

Zofia Kossak-Szczucka Zofia Kossak-Szczucka ( (also Kossak-Szatkowska); 10 August 1889 – 9 April 1968) was a Polish writer and World War II resistance fighter. She co-founded two wartime Polish organizations: Front for the Rebirth of Poland and Żegota, set up t ...

. From 1939 to 1944, Serbia together with the adjacent Pawiak were seized by the Nazi

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

and continued to help in the repression of Warsaw. On 21 August 1944 the Germans blew up the two prisons. After the war the area of women's prison was partially used for the construction of Marchlewskiego Street (today Jan Pawla II Avenue). In 1965, a

plaque Plaque may refer to: Commemorations or awards * Commemorative plaque, a plate or tablet fixed to a wall to mark an event, person, etc. * Memorial Plaque (medallion), issued to next-of-kin of dead British military personnel after World War I * Pla ...

was placed commemorating the place which housed the "Serbia" prison.

Bibliography

* Encyklopedia Warszawy (in Polish), edited by Bartłomieja Kaczorowski. Ed. I PWN. Warsaw 1994. , p 623

External links

Serbia in the architecture of pre-war Warsaw (in Polish)
Defunct prisons in Poland History of Warsaw Warsaw Uprising Warsaw concentration camp 1830s establishments in Poland 1944 disestablishments in Poland {{prison-stub