Wanda Rewieńska-Pawełkowa (22 November 1897 in Kupriańsk in the Kharkov Governorate – 21 November 1942 in Vilnius) was a Polish geographer, achieved the rank of Scoutmaster in the Polish Scouting Association, and became a resistance fighter during World War II. She was murdered by Nazi occupying forces.

Biography

Wanda Rewieńska was the daughter of Aleksander Rewieński, a railway worker, and Stefania Stulczyńska. After attending high school in Vilnius, Lithuania, she passed her high school final exams in 1916 in Petrograd (now called Saint Petersburg), Russia. In 1917–1918 she studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Higher Women's Courses in

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

. During this period, she became active in the underground Polish Scouting and Guiding Association movement, organized secret instructor courses near Kiev, and was a member of the Polish Scouting Command in Ruthenia and Russia (based in

Geographer

In November 1918, she moved to Warsaw, Poland, and soon married physician Alojzy Pawełek, whom she had met in Kiev. At the University of Warsaw, she continued her studies in mathematics and physics, but was interrupted due to illness. Later she graduated in geography at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the

Stefan Batory University Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...

in Vilnius (1929, master's thesis: ''Vilnius Isochrony''). In Warsaw, she continued her scouting activities. She headed the Scout Supplies Committee and cooperated with the ''Harcerz'' magazine. After moving back to Vilnius, she was active in the Vilnius Association of Polish Youth Associations. In 1928 she received the highest possible rank of scoutmaster. After her husband's sudden death in 1930, she focused on her professional work. She took part in international geographical congresses in Toulouse, France (1932) and Warsaw (1937). She taught as an assistant professor and then as an adjunct professor at the Department of Geography at the University of Vilnius. In 1934, she defended her doctorate (thesis: ''Bereza Kartuska, Selected materials from the anthropogeography of the town''), and in 1939 she worked on her

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

thesis titled: ''Cities and towns in northeastern Poland, Topographic location, layout, physiognomy''. In the years 1937–1939, Rewieńska's work was published in the monthly Scout magazine ''Na Przełaj''. She did not have time to lecture at the University of Vilnius due to the outbreak of World War II.

Freedom fighter

With the German occupation of Poland in 1939, Rewieńska became involved in Polish resistance activities, including: lending an apartment to fugitives and organizing false documents for Polish officers and people of Jewish nationality. She was finally arrested by the Germans in April 1942, imprisoned in a Gestapo prison and then in the

Lukiškės Prison Lukiškės Prison ( lt, Lukiškių tardymo izoliatorius kalėjimas; pl, Więzienie na Łukiszkach or simply ''Łukiszki''; be, Лукішкі) was a prison in the center of Vilnius, Lithuania, near the Lukiškės Square. Construction Backg ...

in collective cell no. 31. According to Jackowski, "After being captured she knew what awaited her, but she went around giving words of consolation and support to her fellow female prisoners till the very end." On 21 November 1942, she was transported from the prison to a town outside Vilnius and was murdered in a mass execution by Lithuanian collaborators of the Germans at

Ponary Ponary is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Miłakowo, within Ostróda County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately south of Miłakowo, north of Ostróda, and north-west of the regional capit ...

where many thousands of people were killed over the course of the War.

Selected publications

As a scientist, Rewieńska published works mainly under her maiden name, Wanda Rewieńska. Her publications concerned settlement geography, communication geography, anthropogeography and physical geography, including: Area and population density of urban communes in Poland (1935), Topographic location of urban settlements in north-eastern Poland (1937), Distribution of cities and towns in north-eastern Poland (1938) , Vilnius railway junction in the light of numbers. Passenger traffic (1935), Suburban traffic at the Vilnius railway station (1936).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rewienska, Wanda 1897 births 1942 deaths Polish geographers Polish women scientists 20th-century Polish scientists 20th-century Polish educators 20th-century Polish women scientists 20th-century Polish women educators People executed by Nazi Germany occupation forces Polish people who died in the Holocaust Vilnius University alumni