Zofia Poznańska, also known as Zosia, Zosha, or Sophia (8 June 190629 September 1942) was a Polish antifascist and resistance fighter of the

Soviet 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 ...

-affiliated espionage group that the German

Abwehr The (German language, German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', though the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context) ) was the German military intelligence , military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ...

intelligence service later called the " Red Orchestra".

Life

Zofia Poznańska was born in

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, into the prosperous Jewish family of Mosze Poznański and Hana Poznańska, née Basz. She later grew up in

Kalisz Kalisz () is a city in central Poland, and the second-largest city in the Greater Poland Voivodeship, with 97,905 residents (December 2021). It is the capital city of the Kalisz Region. Situated on the Prosna river in the southeastern part of Gr ...

, after

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

regained its independence in 1918. As a youth she was a member of

Hashomer Hatzair Hashomer Hatzair (, , 'The Young Guard') is a Labor Zionism, Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary. It was also the name of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party, the ...

, a secular

Labor Zionist Labor Zionism () or socialist Zionism () is the Left-wing politics, left-wing, socialism, socialist variant of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist ...

youth movement The following is a list of youth organizations. A youth organization is a type of organization with a focus upon providing activities and socialization for minors. In this list, most organizations are international unless noted otherwise. ...

. In 1925, when she was 19, Poznańska emigrated to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

to live and work at the

Mishmar HaEmek Mishmar HaEmek () is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the western Jezreel Valley, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Megiddo Regional Council. Mishmar HaEmek is one of the few kibbutzim that have not undergone privatization and stil ...

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

, laying gravel to create roads. After becoming disillusioned with the kibbutz and struggling to reconcile her Labor Zionist politics with the displacement of Arab farmers, whose land was being purchased, Poznańska moved to

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

. There she met

Leopold Trepper Leopold Zakharovich Trepper (23 February 1904 – 19 January 1982) was a Polish- Israeli Communist, career Soviet military intelligence officer of the Red Army Intelligence and resistance fighter. With the code name Otto, Trepper had worked wi ...

and joined his Communist

cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life * Cellphone, a phone connected to a cellular network * Clandestine cell, a penetration-resistant form of a secret or outlawed organization * Electrochemical cell, a de ...

, the Ihud movement. In 1927 Poznańska joined the

Palestine Communist Party The Palestine Communist Party (, ''Palestinische Komunistische Partei'', abbreviated PKP; ) was a political party in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate of Palestine formed in 1923 through the merger of the Palestinian Communist Party (192 ...

. She returned to Poland on learning that her sister had fallen seriously ill. When she returned to Palestine, she found that the Ihud had been suppressed by the British authorities, and she eventually moved to Paris, where she was also active in the communist movement. After French police began to put pressure on communists, she moved to Brussels. Yehudit Kafri, ''Zosha: From the Jezreel Valley to the Red Orchestra'' She was the cipher expert in a spy cell run by Trepper under a false Belgian identity as "Anna Verlinden". In October 1941 Poznańska was sent to Brussels to be a cipher clerk to

GRU Gru is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Despicable Me'' film series. Gru or GRU may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Gru (rapper), Serbian rapper * Gru, an antagonist in '' The Kine Saga'' Organizations Georgia (c ...

intelligence agent and radio operator Mikhail Makarov. Poznańska lived with housewife and courier Rita Arnould at 101 Rue des Atrébates, in

Etterbeek Etterbeek (; ) is one of the List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the eastern part of the region, it is bordered by the municipalities of Auderghem, the Cit ...

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

. She was arrested by Abwehr officer Harry Piepe on the night of 12–13 December 1941. Poznańska was one of the first to be arrested by the Abwehr. Poznańska committed suicide by hanging on 29 September 1942 in Saint-Gilles prison, Brussels, so that the cipher she was entrusted with would not fall into German hands. However her sacrifice was largely in a vain, as Wilhelm Vauck, principal cryptographer of the Funkabwehr was able to piece together clues provided by several pieces of paper discovered in the house, that the code used message encipherment that was based on a chequerboard cypher with a book key, a form of

substitution cipher In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encrypting in which units of plaintext are replaced with the ciphertext, in a defined manner, with the help of a key; the "units" may be single letters (the most common), pairs of letters, t ...

. The courier Rita Arnould who was arrested by the Abwehr on the same day, recalled the agents regularly read the same books and was able to identify the name of the book key as ''Le miracle du Professeur Wolmar'' by Guy de Téramond, an obscure 1910 novel.

Legacy

In 2003, Israeli writer Yehudit Kafri published a

biographical novel The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional account of a contemporary or historical person's life. Like other forms of biographical fiction, details are often trimmed or reimagined to meet the artistic needs of the fictio ...

about Poznańska, ''Zosha: From the Jezreel Valley to the Red Orchestra'' (Jerusalem, Keter, 2003, ), later published in Poland in English translation by Anne Hartstein Pace (Toruń, Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, 2009, ), which was republished as ''Codename: Zosha'' (

CreateSpace On-Demand Publishing, LLC, doing business as CreateSpace, was a self-publishing service owned by Amazon. The company was founded in 2000 in South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, So ...

, 2014, ). Kafri writes in the opening: "The characters in this story are not fictitious. As for their actions, thoughts and feelings - some occurred and some could have occurred." She dedicates the English translation to Anna Orgal, who died in the 2003 Davidka Square bus bombing. ''Text seen online via Amazon.co.uk's "Look inside"'' Poznańska is buried in a mass grave at

Saint-Gilles, Belgium ( French, ) or ( Dutch, ) is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the southern part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, Anderlecht, Forest and Ixelles. In common with all of Brus ...

, where a tombstone bearing the inscription ''Resistante'', with her name, was erected in 1985. In Israel, a grove was dedicated to her in 1983 in Eshtaol Forest, and she was posthumously awarded a

Fighters against Nazis Medal Fighter(s) or The Fighter(s) may refer to: Combat and warfare * Combatant, a person legally entitled to participate in hostilities during an armed conflict * Fighter aircraft, a warplane designed primarily for air-to-air combat ** Fighter pilot, ...

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poznanska, Sophia 1906 births 1942 deaths 1942 suicides People from Kalisz Hashomer Hatzair members Polish women in World War II resistance Red Orchestra (espionage) Polish emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Polish emigrants to Belgium Polish Zionists Suicides by hanging in Belgium People who died by suicide in prison custody Polish people who died in the Holocaust Polish people who died in Nazi concentration camps