Zofia Kuratowska (20 July 1931 – 8 June 1999) was a Polish doctor, politician, and diplomat of Jewish descent. Her father, Kazimierz Kuratowski, was a mathematician who worked at the Warsaw School of Mathematics. Kuratowska took part in the Warsaw Uprising during World War II. After the war ended, she graduated from the Medical University of Warsaw with a specialty in

hematology Hematology ( always spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the produc ...

, and became a doctor. In the 1980s she joined the Solidarity movement and became one of their healthcare workers. During her time in Solidarity, she took care of over 1,000 political prisoners, and published underground magazines emphasizing their lack of care and inadequate living conditions. During the HIV/AIDS epidemic throughout the 1980s, the government turned to Kuratowska, working with her to prevent the spread of the virus despite having blacklisted her earlier in the decade due to her Solidarity activism. In 1989, she took part in the

Polish Round Table Agreement The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Poland from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarność and other opposition groups in an attempt to defuse growing social unrest. Histo ...

, and from there ran for the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

in the first democratic elections. She won with 82.5 percent of the vote, the largest margin of any candidate, which she accomplished by saying that she "could not promise anything." In her first term, she was chosen to be Deputy Marshal of the Senate. During this time, she also ran the Hematology Clinic at the Warsaw School of Medicine. Kuratowska was re-elected to the Senate in 1991 in 1993, serving as Deputy Marshal again during her third term. She served on the Committee on Social Affairs and Health and the Foreign Affairs Committee. After her term ended in 1997, she was nominated to be the ambassador to South Africa, where she spent the rest of her life, dying in 1999.

Honours

* Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1987) * Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1990) * Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1997)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuratowska, Zofia 1931 births 1999 deaths People from Piaseczno County People from Warsaw Voivodeship (1919–1939) 20th-century Polish Jews Democratic Union (Poland) politicians Freedom Union (Poland) politicians Members of the Senate of Poland 1989–1991 Members of the Senate of Poland 1991–1993 Members of the Senate of Poland 1993–1997 Women members of the Senate of Poland Ambassadors of Poland to South Africa Polish women ambassadors Polish Round Table Talks participants Polish hematologists 20th-century Polish physicians Medical University of Warsaw alumni Academic staff of the Medical University of Warsaw Commanders of the Order of Polonia Restituta Commanders with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta Knights of the Order of Polonia Restituta Burials at Powązki Military Cemetery 20th-century Polish women