Wanda Józefa Maria Kirchmayer (9 November 1901 – 29 March 1944) was an agricultural engineer and a World War II resistance fighter, and second lieutenant of the Polish Secret Military Organization.

Biography

Wanda Józefa Maria Kirchmayer was the daughter of Kazimierz Kirchmayer (a lawyer) and Wanda (née Matłaszczyńska) and sister of Jerzy Kirchmayer, a general of the Polish Army. In 1921 she passed her matriculation exam at the IV State Gymnasium in Krakow. After high school, she volunteered with the White Cross for three months before starting university. Her studies were interrupted twice for illness but she received good grades and in 1928, she graduated from the Warsaw Agricultural University and received the title of agricultural engineer. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, beginning in the spring of 1940, she joined the resistance group called Secret Military Organization (TOW) under the pseudonyms "Wanda" and "Janka." She served as deputy to Jozef Kesiel (alias "Skib"), head of the Communications Department of the TOW Headquarters. Her tasks included maintaining contact with the TOW Kraków District and receiving couriers arriving in Warsaw. She had contacts with the cities of

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

and Radom. In March 1943, after the TOW was merged with the

Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

, she worked at the headquarters of the Warsaw District Kedyw. She was arrested while carrying incriminating material during a street contact with a courier arriving from Krakow in February/March 1943 and was imprisoned in Pawiak. She was tortured in the Gestapo's Szucha prison and she asked her relatives (who were still at large) for poison, but they did not succeed in delivering it. Wanda was executed in the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto.Hanna Michalska: Dictionary of participants in the fight for Polish independence 1939-1945; killed and killed during the German occupation. Warsaw: National Publishing Institute, 1988, pp. 184-185;

Orders and decorations

* Cross of Valour * Silver Cross of the Military Order of Virtuti Militari – posthumously

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirchmayer, Wanda 1901 births 1944 deaths Recipients of the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari 20th-century Polish engineers Polish women in World War II resistance 20th-century Polish women engineers Executed Polish women Executed Polish people Polish civilians killed in World War II People who died in the Warsaw Ghetto