Taking to social media, Warsaw’s Mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, called her a “hero” and “a wonderful person” before writing: “Thank you for everything. Warsaw will always remember you.”
On Facebook, the Warsaw Rising Museum echoed the Mayor: “There are no words to describe this loss - you will remain in our hearts forever.”
Born Zofia Sosnowska in Tomaszów Mazowiecki in 1923, her formative years were shaped by her membership of the scouts. Working as a factory machinist when the Germans invaded, she later moved to Warsaw at the height of the occupation.
Living at ul. Sienna 45 in the city center, on August 1, 1944, she watched from her sixth-floor window as shots were fired on Pl. Grzybowski close by. Inadvertently, she had witnessed one of the first clashes of the Warsaw Uprising.
Volunteering for a unit called Chrobry II, she worked as a nurse caring for injured combatants and civilians. Following the capitulation, she was imprisoned in a POW camp.
Marrying after the war, for years she kept silent about her experiences, largely out of fear of the Communist authorities. Finding work as a costume embroiderer in a string of Warsaw theaters, Czekalska’s story was only revealed decades later when she opened up to her granddaughter about her past.
With the passing of the Communist regime her experiences were soon shared with others, most notably the Warsaw Rising Museum once it opened in 2004. The museum’s Dr Karol Mazur said: “she had wonderful communication skills when it came to young people - quite often she took part in museum workshops and was always full of emotions and stories. She conducted powerful lessons and was able to connect to even the most distant people… She was the good spirit of our museum.”
Lasting 63-days, the Warsaw Uprising is considered one of the defining moments in modern Polish history. With the Eastern Front crumbling and the Nazis seemingly broken, the insurgency was launched by the Polish underground with the aim of toppling the city’s German authorities and installing an independent Polish leadership ahead of Soviet liberation.
Instead, the city descended into savage fighting. In all, up to 200,000 civilians were slaughtered and the Polish capital methodically reduced to ashes following the exile of the surviving population.
