Anna Zabrzeska (married name Czernicka) was born in Oświęcim on 29th March 1923. Here she attended elementary school and began her secondary school education which was interrupted by the outbreak of war. When the Germans established Auschwitz in 1940, she helped its prisoners almost from the beginning.
Anna Zabrzeska acted spontaneously: she planted food and medicine for inmates working outside the camp. She also acted as an intermediary in the transmission of illegal correspondence (secret messages). She even willingly donated her entire salary to the prisoners. When packages could be sent to the camp, she did so through the official mail. She included her brother Kazimierz, Oświęcim and Brzeszcze pharmacists and Oświęcim residents in these activities. She rendered this aid practically uninterruptedly until the end of the German occupation. After the liberation of Auschwitz prisoners, she continued to help them in a makeshift hospital.
The end of the war meant several years of normality for Anna Zabrzeska. However, in December 1949 she was arrested in Katowice by officers of the Security Office. She was 26 years old at the time. The reason she was deprived of her freedom was that she maintained an acquaintance with Tadeusz Cieśla. He had been an Auschwitz prisoner since August 1940 and was later Anna’s fiancé. Transferred to a camp in the Czech Republic, he escaped from it in April 1945 and became involved in underground independence activities. Arrested by the communists, he was sentenced to death and executed on 9th July 1952. A month later, the communist police executed his younger brother Kazimierz, also active in the underground.
In the custody of the communist political police for 11 months, Anna Zabrzeska was accused of spying for a foreign country. During that time, she was cruelly beaten, interrogated repeatedly day and night. She had no contact with her family. By a November 1950 military court verdict, she was sentenced to five years in prison with loss of civil rights for two years and forfeiture of property. She practically served her sentence in full. She remained under the watch of the Security Service until… 1989.
Anna Zabrzeska was decorated for her heroism on several occasions, including the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. Her life and works are commemorated in the permanent exhibition at the Remembrance Museum.
On the occasion of her beautiful jubilee, we wish Mrs. Zabrzeska good health and all the best.
