Born: 3 November 1900, Russia
Died: 7 February 1982
Country most active: Poland
Also known as: Irena Biała, Bronka
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
In 1943, Dr. Irena Białówna was arrested by the Gestapo for her work in the underground resistance movement. The investigation lasted five months, after which she was interned in a prison in Białystok, where she provided medical aid to fellow prisoners and managed to subdue the outbreak of typhus, with which she also became infected.
Following her arrest, she was transferred to a prison in Kraków, then to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Here, together with other doctors, she dedicated herself to supporting interned mothers and their children and forged documentation to protect female prisoners. Thanks to Dr. Białówna’s influence, the inmates received more blankets and a change of mattresses and sheets. She enhanced the stock of medications and acquired needles and syringes for injections. Her efforts significantly improved the block hygiene. Despite the short supply of resources, the changes she and her associates introduced were significant: in the winter of 1943/44, the death rate in the block was about 50 per day, whereas, in the winter of 1944/45, there were days when no one died, with over 300 patients in the block.
Dr. Irena Białówna (1900 – 1982) was born in Caricyn (Volgograd) to railway engineer Józef Biały and teacher Kazimiera née Kobylińska. In 1920, she started studying medicine at the University of Voronezh in Central Russia. After a year, she moved with her family to Poland to continue her studies at the Medical University of Warsaw. She obtained her diploma in 1927 and moved to Białystok, where she volunteered at St. Roche’s Hospital, worked as a school doctor, and co-organized summer camps for children from poverty-stricken families. During the Invasion of Poland, she served in the Polish Red Cross. In 1941, she was the head of the Children’s Department at the hospital at Fabryczna and Warszawska Streets, where, together with Anna Ellert, they provided care for Polish, Jewish, and Soviet children lost in the war.