Małgorzata Fornalska (

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

: ''Jasia''; 8 June 1902 – 26 July 1944) was a Polish

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

activist and anti-

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

resistance fighter.

Biography

Fornalska was born in Fajsławice to a family of communist activists. From 1918, she was a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and the

Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks) The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

as well as the

Communist Party of Poland The interwar Communist Party of Poland (, KPP) was a communist party active in Poland during the Second Polish Republic. It resulted from a December 1918 merger of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) and the ...

. From July–December 1918 she worked at orphanages in

Saratov Saratov ( , ; , ) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River. Saratov had a population of 901,361, making it the List of cities and tow ...

and Petrovsk. In January 1920, Fornalska returned to Poland and worked for the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee together with her brother Aleksander. Later, she studied at the Sverdlov Communist University and the International Lenin School in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. Fornalska was arrested and imprisoned several times for her communist activity, the first time in 1922 in Poland and then several times in the 1930s. After being released in 1939, she went to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, where she worked with other exiled Polish communists. In the spring of 1942 she was parachuted into Poland, then occupied by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, in order to organize the communist resistance against the occupation.Jerzy Eisler, ''Siedmiu wspaniałych. Poczet pierwszych sekretarzy KC PZPR'' he Magnificent Seven: first secretaries of the PZPR p. 55. Wydawnictwo Czerwone i Czarne, Warszawa 2014, . She was elected to the Central Committee of the newly formed

Polish Workers' Party The Polish Workers' Party (, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1948 to form the Polish United W ...

and worked as one of the editors of the party's newspaper, ''Trybuna Wolności''. On 14 November 1943, Fornalska was arrested by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, 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 F ...

and imprisoned in Serbia Prison. She was executed by the Germans in the ruins of the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

on 26 July 1944. Posthumously, Fornalska was awarded the Order of the Cross of Grunwald, 1st class, in 1948.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fornalska, Małgorzata 1902 births 1944 deaths Communist Party of Poland politicians Deaths by firearm in Poland People who died in the Warsaw Ghetto Polish resistance members of World War II Polish Workers' Party politicians Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Grunwald, 1st class Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania politicians People from Krasnystaw County People from Lublin Governorate