The Warsaw Branch of the IPN would like to send out its invitation to the Polish – English outdoor exhibition in Warsaw prepared in conjunction with the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. The exhibition aims to commemorate and honour the outstanding courage and sacrifice of the women who took part in  the Warsaw Uprising.

“Heroines Among Heroes” is an extraordinary presentation of the stories of women who fought for Poland’s freedom during the Warsaw Uprising. Through unique photographs and accounts we want to pay tribute to their courage and remind the public of their irreplaceable contribution to the history of Poland.

The opening took place on 26 July 2024 at Hoover Square in Warsaw. The participants of the event also had a chance to listen to a street concert of insurgent songs performed by the “Ferajna z Hoovera” band.

- On behalf of the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, Karol Nawrocki, I would like to thank the authors of the exhibition. I am glad that so many people have come to this opening and that for the next few weeks the exhibit will be on display here in Warsaw, which will once again experience the anniversary of its great days. The days of glory, the days of the triumph of good over evil, because those who fought 80 years ago took up this brave fight. Let us also not forget that despite having lost this fight in a military and political sense, they were undoubtedly winners in a moral sense, - emphasized advisor to the President of the IPN Jan Józef Kasprzyk.

The opening of the exhibition was attended, among others, by the Director of the Warsaw Branch of the Institute of National Remembrance Dr. Tomasz Łabuszewski, the Director of the Bialystok Branch Dr. Marek Jedynak, as well as members of the families of the heroines.

We cordially invite you to jointly honor the memory of our heroic women! The exhibition will be on display until 16 August 2024.

The mass participation of Polish women in the independence conspiracy during World War II was not a coincidence, but a consequence of their activity for an independent Polish state in earlier years .

In the ranks of the Women's Voluntary Legion they fought both against the armies of the partitioners in 1918 and against the Bolsheviks in 1920. In the inter-war period, several hundred thousand women underwent sanitary and military training organised first by the Women's Organisation for the Defence of the Country and, from 1939, by the Women's Military Organisation. The latter had more than 47,000 female members before World War II. Women were also the first to get involved  in the underground activities organised as early as the autumn of 1939 by the Service for Poland’s Victory and many other independence organisations.

As the military structures of the Polish Underground State developed, the role of women steadily increased. They were no longer just an auxiliary group but, as part of the Women's Military Service or Soldier's Aid, they became fully fledged soldiers of the underground army. Women could be found in all kinds of services; in the offices, financial, courier and radio communication units, in cipher cells, in the editorial offices of conspiratorial journals, in distribution, intelligence and counterintelligence, in sanitary services, quartermaster services, as well as in the front line of battle - in combat patrols, mining patrols and partisan units.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that on 1 August 1944, approx. 7,000 women soldiers of the Home Army joined the Warsaw Uprising. In total, more than 12,000  had taken part, which constituted around 20 per cent of all those fighting. They paid a terrible price for their heroism and sacrifice during the 63 days of fighting. 700–800 nurses had died or had been murdered by the Germans. Over 300 female liaison officers had died - including the particularly heroic ones who guided people through the canals. Many female soldiers from the Women's Mining Patrols and the Kedyw unit of the Home Army Headquarters, Women's Diversion and Sabotage (“Dysk”) died on the barricades.

The women you can see in this exhibition are just some of the many heroines of the uprising....