Stanislawa Leszczynska - Midwife at Auschwitz
The Stanislawa Leszczynska Foundation

The family of Stanislawa Leszczynska participated in an underground movement against German occupation of Poland during the World War II. The city of Lodz was specifically prosecuted because of a large Jewish population, representing almost 50% of residents.

Stanislawa's husband was a printer at a local shop. At nights he produced false IDs for Jews escaping from the Ghetto and for the local underground resistance. After his activities were discovered, the entire family was arrested. Stanislawa with her daughter was sent to Auschwitz, and her two sons were sent to Mauthausen Gusen. Her husband with her third son escaped the arrest and was later killed in Warsaw.

In Auschwitz, Stanislawa worked as a midwife and she delivered over 3,000 babies in the most horrendous conditions. 1,500 newborns were murdered by Germans, 1,000 died from cold and hunger, 500 were sent to Germany to be brought up as Germans, and 30 survived the camp.

"Raport" From Auschwitz - Stanislawa Leszczynska's Memoirs

In my 35 years of work as a midwife, I spend 2 years as a midwife-prisoner in a women's concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Among many transports arriving to the camp there were lots of pregnant women.

Thirty beds closest to the furnace were used as a maternity ward. In the barrack there were infections, stench of sick bodies, and every kind of bugs crawling around bodies. The barrack was infested with rats, which were biting off noses, ears, fingers and feet of exhausted and very sick women, who were too sick to move. Whenever I could I would brush off rats

Constant attacks of bugs and rats were directed not only to sick women, but to newborn babies. The bodies exhausted by hunger and cold, tortured and sick, died quickly. The number of sick in the barrack was 1,000 to 1,200 people. Everyday an average of 15 of them passed away.

The typhus sick were, whenever possible, hidden from Lagerarztem (the SS-camp doctor), normally by marking a "flue" on their cards. Anyone with typhus was immediately sent to a gas chamber. Overall, no one could escape this sickness. The volume of lice was so overwhelming; the infection typhus was a fact of life for everybody. The main meal of sick women was a heated spoiled grass, containing, without exaggeration, 20% of rats' droppings.

A woman in the last stages of pregnancy was forced to save her portions of bread for which she could "buy" a bed cover. She would tear it into strips, getting pampers and clothes for the infant ready, since there was nothing available for the infant. There was no water in the barrack, so washing pampers was very difficult.

For normal newborns there was no food allowed, not even a drop of milk.

Until May 1943 all newborn born in Aushwitz concentration camp were murdered in the most brutal way: they were drowned in a barrel. It was done by Schwester Klara and Schwester Pfani. The first one was a midwife herself and came to the camp because she murdered a child. In May 1943 the situation of some children has changed. Children with blue eyes and blond hair were taken from their mothers and send to Germany to be Germanized. Overwhelming scream of mothers accompanied departing of each transport of newborns. As long as a newborn was together with the mother, motherhood itself created a ray of hope. Separation with the newborn was overwhelming.

Thinking about a possibility of reuniting these children in the future with their mothers I started tattooing newborns under their armpits, in a way so SS would not discover it. The thought of a possibility of future reunion with their children helped many women go through this ordeal

In the concentration camp all children, against all odds, were born alive, beautiful and chubby. The Nature, against all hate, was fighting for its rights with unknown force of life. The Nature is a teacher of a midwife. Together they fight for life and together they cherish the most beautiful thing in this world, the smile of a child.

From The Seattle Catholic - Midwife at Auschwitz

Born Stanislawa Zambrzyska in 1896, she married Bronislaw Leszczynski in 1916 and together they had two sons and a daughter. In 1922, she graduated from a school for midwives and began working in the poorest districts of Lodz. In pre-war Poland, babies were normally delivered at home. Stanislawa made herself available at any time, walking many kilometers to the homes of the women she helped. Her children recall that she often worked nights but she never slept during the day.

Stanislawa was arrested in Lodz on February 18, 1943, with her daughter and two sons. The sons were sent to the labor camp at Mathausen and Gusen to work in the stone quarries. She and her daughter, Sylvia, were sent to Auschwitz where they arrived on April 17, 1943. They were given the numbers 41335 and 41336, tattooed on their forearms. They would remain as mementos of the camp.

Stanislawa recalls the conditions the sick inmates had to contend with: "In the winter, when the temperatures were very low, icicles formed on the ceiling from the breath and perspiration – one silvery rod next to another. When, in the evening, the lights were put on, they glittered beautifully. They looked like one great crystal chandelier. But under these icicles, people slept and sick women delivered their babies."

The brick stove, says Stanislawa, "served as the only place for deliveries, because no other. . . arrangement for the purpose was available. The oven was only lit a few times during the year. . . Thirty bunks nearest the oven constituted the so-called maternity ward."

Stanislawa goes on to describe the misery of life in the camp: "In general the block was dominated by infections, stench and all kinds of vermin. Rats were abundant. . . . The victims of the rats were not only sick women but also the newborn children." There were 1,000 to 1,200 patients on average in the sick-ward. Of these at least a dozen died each day.

Maria Oyrzynska says that one day, while assisting Stanislawa with a delivery, the latter took the baby, washed it, wrapped it in paper and a blanket and said: "Now the most important thing. We shall baptize the child." "I was the godmother," Maria recalls, "this was my first godchild. .

[Stanislawa] poured some water on the baby's head and said: 'I baptize you, Adam, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Since she passed away in 1974, there has been growing devotion to Stanislawa Leszczynska in Poland. Pilgrimages are organized to her grave, while materials are being compiled as evidence for her process of beatification. She was commemorated in a "Chalice of Life," offered to the famous Czestochowa shrine at Jasna Gora by Polish women in May 1982, and in 1983 the Krakow School for Obstetricians was named in her honor. Numerous people have attested to favors obtained through her intercession, particularly in connection with child-birth problems.

************************************

Servant of God
Stanislaus Leszczyńska
(1896-1974)
S tanisława Leszczyńska born in Łódź on 8 May 1896. Was baptized in the parish church. Assumption. Her parents, John and Henry Zambrzyccy lived in Bałuty Street. Żurawia 7 Stanisławy father had no fixed workplace. Engaged in carpentry work, which he performed at home. When Stanislaus was a child, her father was appointed to the five years to the Russian army and stayed in Turkestan. Mother, Henry worked for 12 hours in the factory of Poznan. Despite difficult conditions Stanislaus started quite early school education. First, at age 7, she attended a private study and two years later began teaching in a private grammar school in Lodz Wenceslas Maciejewski.

In 1908, the whole family goes to Brazil where Rio de Janeiro stayed close relative maternal Stanisławy. This experience caused profit-making purposes only lasted two years. After returning to Lodz Stanislaus has interrupted their education in grammar school who graduated before 1914.

With the start of World War I Leszczyńska father was again drafted into the army and she Stanislaw worked in the Committee for Aid to the Poor. It was a very difficult period for Stanisławy with her mother and two younger brothers.

On 17 October 1916, Stanislaus entered into marriage with Bronislaw Leszczynski, who was by profession a printer. In 1917 born son of Bronislaw and two years later, the daughter Sylvia. In 1920, Leszczynski family moved to Warsaw, where Stanislaw undertake their studies at the School Maternity. In 1922, after graduating from high school with a prize, Stanislaus and his family returned to Lodz and takes a job as a midwife, which is fully 40 years. "Own professional work very loved and raved about every newborn child. Dzidziusiach She told us with a smile" - noted down her daughter Sylvia. In 1922 born the son of Stanislaw, and a year later, the youngest son of Henry.

Along with War II come to the family Leszczynski hard times. In connection with the embodiment of st. Żurawia to the ghetto, to carry out on the street. Common 3 Leszczyńscy greatly help the Jews in the ghetto (food, fake documents). This became the reason for the arrest of Stanislaw and her children: Sylvia, Stanislaus and Henry by the Gestapo. Her husband and eldest son Bronislaw managed to escape. Husband Stanisławy, though he escaped the Gestapo, they did not live to see the end of the war, died in the Warsaw Uprising.

April 17, 1943, the, Stanislaus and his daughter Sylvia after questioning at the headquarters of the Gestapo was transported to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where she received the prisoner number 41335 and the daughter of 41336. During the revision failed to keep Leszczyńska certificate entitling her to practice as a midwife, thanks was named midwife camp.

That's what she said obozowemu doctor in uniform esesmańskim Dr. Mengele, when he had to kill her newborn child: "No, never. Do not kill children!" Every day and every night when it adopted a baby who tried to save at all costs, act your suit Nazi criminals - no, never! The whole ordeal camp described Leszczyńska after years in his shocking "Report midwife from Auschwitz". Midwife camp remained until the end, until 26 January 1945, on which date the camp was liberated. Left the camp with her daughter on Feb. 2, 1945, the first his steps addressed to the church in Auschwitz, where he adopted the sacraments.

After successfully returning sons, Stanislaus lived in Łódź, ul. Zgierska 99 and took a job as a midwife. Every birth, which was depriving omodlony, to pray encouraged the nascent mother.

27 January 1970 was followed by a meeting in Warsaw St. Leszczyńska oświęcimskimi of mothers and children born in the camp.

In 1973, the deteriorated state of health Stanisławy Leszczyńska. While the disease every day take communion St., Which eased her suffering. She died March 11, 1974, the funeral took place in the cemetery of St. Rocha on Radogoszcz in Lodz. On the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Stanislaw Leszczyńska (1996), her remains were moved from the cemetery to the Church of the Assumption, where she was baptized.

**********

Church of the Assumption of Our Blessed Mary [Kościół Wniebowzięcia Najświętszej Maryi Panny]
Church of the Assumption of Our Blessed MaryBuilt to replace St Joseph's on Kościelny Square between 1888-97, this vast neo-Gothic red brick beauty features some remarkable altars including the superb main altar that includes a triptych of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary dating from 1655, and some of the loveliest examples of stained glass in Poland. The famous Auschwitz nurse Stanisława Leszczyńska is buried here in the crypt, and at the back find the tomb of a certain Mr. Wyszynski, dated 1822 and the only thing left from the oldest cemetery in Łódź.

Stanislawa Leszczynska - Midwife at Auschwitz
The Stanislawa Leszczynska Foundation

The family of Stanislawa Leszczynska participated in an underground movement against German occupation of Poland during the World War II. The city of Lodz was specifically prosecuted because of a large Jewish population, representing almost 50% of residents.

Stanislawa's husband was a printer at a local shop. At nights he produced false IDs for Jews escaping from the Ghetto and for the local underground resistance. After his activities were discovered, the entire family was arrested. Stanislawa with her daughter was sent to Auschwitz, and her two sons were sent to Mauthausen Gusen. Her husband with her third son escaped the arrest and was later killed in Warsaw.

In Auschwitz, Stanislawa worked as a midwife and she delivered over 3,000 babies in the most horrendous conditions. 1,500 newborns were murdered by Germans, 1,000 died from cold and hunger, 500 were sent to Germany to be brought up as Germans, and 30 survived the camp.

"Raport" From Auschwitz - Stanislawa Leszczynska's Memoirs

In my 35 years of work as a midwife, I spend 2 years as a midwife-prisoner in a women's concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Among many transports arriving to the camp there were lots of pregnant women.

Thirty beds closest to the furnace were used as a maternity ward. In the barrack there were infections, stench of sick bodies, and every kind of bugs crawling around bodies. The barrack was infested with rats, which were biting off noses, ears, fingers and feet of exhausted and very sick women, who were too sick to move. Whenever I could I would brush off rats

Constant attacks of bugs and rats were directed not only to sick women, but to newborn babies. The bodies exhausted by hunger and cold, tortured and sick, died quickly. The number of sick in the barrack was 1,000 to 1,200 people. Everyday an average of 15 of them passed away.

The typhus sick were, whenever possible, hidden from Lagerarztem (the SS-camp doctor), normally by marking a "flue" on their cards. Anyone with typhus was immediately sent to a gas chamber. Overall, no one could escape this sickness. The volume of lice was so overwhelming; the infection typhus was a fact of life for everybody. The main meal of sick women was a heated spoiled grass, containing, without exaggeration, 20% of rats' droppings.

A woman in the last stages of pregnancy was forced to save her portions of bread for which she could "buy" a bed cover. She would tear it into strips, getting pampers and clothes for the infant ready, since there was nothing available for the infant. There was no water in the barrack, so washing pampers was very difficult.

For normal newborns there was no food allowed, not even a drop of milk.

Until May 1943 all newborn born in Aushwitz concentration camp were murdered in the most brutal way: they were drowned in a barrel. It was done by Schwester Klara and Schwester Pfani. The first one was a midwife herself and came to the camp because she murdered a child. In May 1943 the situation of some children has changed. Children with blue eyes and blond hair were taken from their mothers and send to Germany to be Germanized. Overwhelming scream of mothers accompanied departing of each transport of newborns. As long as a newborn was together with the mother, motherhood itself created a ray of hope. Separation with the newborn was overwhelming.

Thinking about a possibility of reuniting these children in the future with their mothers I started tattooing newborns under their armpits, in a way so SS would not discover it. The thought of a possibility of future reunion with their children helped many women go through this ordeal

In the concentration camp all children, against all odds, were born alive, beautiful and chubby. The Nature, against all hate, was fighting for its rights with unknown force of life. The Nature is a teacher of a midwife. Together they fight for life and together they cherish the most beautiful thing in this world, the smile of a child.

From The Seattle Catholic - Midwife at Auschwitz

Born Stanislawa Zambrzyska in 1896, she married Bronislaw Leszczynski in 1916 and together they had two sons and a daughter. In 1922, she graduated from a school for midwives and began working in the poorest districts of Lodz. In pre-war Poland, babies were normally delivered at home. Stanislawa made herself available at any time, walking many kilometers to the homes of the women she helped. Her children recall that she often worked nights but she never slept during the day.

Stanislawa was arrested in Lodz on February 18, 1943, with her daughter and two sons. The sons were sent to the labor camp at Mathausen and Gusen to work in the stone quarries. She and her daughter, Sylvia, were sent to Auschwitz where they arrived on April 17, 1943. They were given the numbers 41335 and 41336, tattooed on their forearms. They would remain as mementos of the camp.

Stanislawa recalls the conditions the sick inmates had to contend with: "In the winter, when the temperatures were very low, icicles formed on the ceiling from the breath and perspiration – one silvery rod next to another. When, in the evening, the lights were put on, they glittered beautifully. They looked like one great crystal chandelier. But under these icicles, people slept and sick women delivered their babies."

The brick stove, says Stanislawa, "served as the only place for deliveries, because no other. . . arrangement for the purpose was available. The oven was only lit a few times during the year. . . Thirty bunks nearest the oven constituted the so-called maternity ward."

Stanislawa goes on to describe the misery of life in the camp: "In general the block was dominated by infections, stench and all kinds of vermin. Rats were abundant. . . . The victims of the rats were not only sick women but also the newborn children." There were 1,000 to 1,200 patients on average in the sick-ward. Of these at least a dozen died each day.

Maria Oyrzynska says that one day, while assisting Stanislawa with a delivery, the latter took the baby, washed it, wrapped it in paper and a blanket and said: "Now the most important thing. We shall baptize the child." "I was the godmother," Maria recalls, "this was my first godchild. .

[Stanislawa] poured some water on the baby's head and said: 'I baptize you, Adam, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Since she passed away in 1974, there has been growing devotion to Stanislawa Leszczynska in Poland. Pilgrimages are organized to her grave, while materials are being compiled as evidence for her process of beatification. She was commemorated in a "Chalice of Life," offered to the famous Czestochowa shrine at Jasna Gora by Polish women in May 1982, and in 1983 the Krakow School for Obstetricians was named in her honor. Numerous people have attested to favors obtained through her intercession, particularly in connection with child-birth problems.

************************************

Servant of God
Stanislaus Leszczyńska
(1896-1974)
S tanisława Leszczyńska born in Łódź on 8 May 1896. Was baptized in the parish church. Assumption. Her parents, John and Henry Zambrzyccy lived in Bałuty Street. Żurawia 7 Stanisławy father had no fixed workplace. Engaged in carpentry work, which he performed at home. When Stanislaus was a child, her father was appointed to the five years to the Russian army and stayed in Turkestan. Mother, Henry worked for 12 hours in the factory of Poznan. Despite difficult conditions Stanislaus started quite early school education. First, at age 7, she attended a private study and two years later began teaching in a private grammar school in Lodz Wenceslas Maciejewski.

In 1908, the whole family goes to Brazil where Rio de Janeiro stayed close relative maternal Stanisławy. This experience caused profit-making purposes only lasted two years. After returning to Lodz Stanislaus has interrupted their education in grammar school who graduated before 1914.

With the start of World War I Leszczyńska father was again drafted into the army and she Stanislaw worked in the Committee for Aid to the Poor. It was a very difficult period for Stanisławy with her mother and two younger brothers.

On 17 October 1916, Stanislaus entered into marriage with Bronislaw Leszczynski, who was by profession a printer. In 1917 born son of Bronislaw and two years later, the daughter Sylvia. In 1920, Leszczynski family moved to Warsaw, where Stanislaw undertake their studies at the School Maternity. In 1922, after graduating from high school with a prize, Stanislaus and his family returned to Lodz and takes a job as a midwife, which is fully 40 years. "Own professional work very loved and raved about every newborn child. Dzidziusiach She told us with a smile" - noted down her daughter Sylvia. In 1922 born the son of Stanislaw, and a year later, the youngest son of Henry.

Along with War II come to the family Leszczynski hard times. In connection with the embodiment of st. Żurawia to the ghetto, to carry out on the street. Common 3 Leszczyńscy greatly help the Jews in the ghetto (food, fake documents). This became the reason for the arrest of Stanislaw and her children: Sylvia, Stanislaus and Henry by the Gestapo. Her husband and eldest son Bronislaw managed to escape. Husband Stanisławy, though he escaped the Gestapo, they did not live to see the end of the war, died in the Warsaw Uprising.

April 17, 1943, the, Stanislaus and his daughter Sylvia after questioning at the headquarters of the Gestapo was transported to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where she received the prisoner number 41335 and the daughter of 41336. During the revision failed to keep Leszczyńska certificate entitling her to practice as a midwife, thanks was named midwife camp.

That's what she said obozowemu doctor in uniform esesmańskim Dr. Mengele, when he had to kill her newborn child: "No, never. Do not kill children!" Every day and every night when it adopted a baby who tried to save at all costs, act your suit Nazi criminals - no, never! The whole ordeal camp described Leszczyńska after years in his shocking "Report midwife from Auschwitz". Midwife camp remained until the end, until 26 January 1945, on which date the camp was liberated. Left the camp with her daughter on Feb. 2, 1945, the first his steps addressed to the church in Auschwitz, where he adopted the sacraments.

After successfully returning sons, Stanislaus lived in Łódź, ul. Zgierska 99 and took a job as a midwife. Every birth, which was depriving omodlony, to pray encouraged the nascent mother.

27 January 1970 was followed by a meeting in Warsaw St. Leszczyńska oświęcimskimi of mothers and children born in the camp.

In 1973, the deteriorated state of health Stanisławy Leszczyńska. While the disease every day take communion St., Which eased her suffering. She died March 11, 1974, the funeral took place in the cemetery of St. Rocha on Radogoszcz in Lodz. On the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Stanislaw Leszczyńska (1996), her remains were moved from the cemetery to the Church of the Assumption, where she was baptized.

**********

Church of the Assumption of Our Blessed Mary [Kościół Wniebowzięcia Najświętszej Maryi Panny]
Church of the Assumption of Our Blessed MaryBuilt to replace St Joseph's on Kościelny Square between 1888-97, this vast neo-Gothic red brick beauty features some remarkable altars including the superb main altar that includes a triptych of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary dating from 1655, and some of the loveliest examples of stained glass in Poland. The famous Auschwitz nurse Stanisława Leszczyńska is buried here in the crypt, and at the back find the tomb of a certain Mr. Wyszynski, dated 1822 and the only thing left from the oldest cemetery in Łódź.