When the Second World War broke out, Magdalena Grodzka-Gużkowska was a teenager. She declared personal war on Hitler and joined the Polish underground. She also helped persecuted Jews.

Magdalena Grodzka-Gużkowska was 14 years old when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, the outbreak of the Second World War. Despite the catastrophe that struck Poland and the world, she continued her education. She studied at the so-called secret classes. This was a special way of education in occupied Poland organised in secret from the invaders. In such circumstances, she passed her matriculation exam and began her medical studies.

The very next year, after the outbreak of the Second World War, she joined the structures of the Polish Underground State and, as she put it, declared personal war on Hitler. Among other things, she belonged to the Union of Armed Struggle-Home Army. She acted as a liaison officer, carrying messages and helping fugitives cross the green border. She also translated information from the BBC. In 1942, she joined a group executing sentences imposed by special courts of underground Poland on persons who had committed treason and collaborated with the German occupier. In 1944, she took part in the Warsaw Uprising – the largest armed anti-German uprising during the Second World War.

One of her activities was also cooperation with the Council to Aid Jews ” Żegota” – a Polish underground organisation which dealt with rescuing Jews persecuted by the Germans. Grodzka-Gużkowska taught adult Jews how they should behave so that the Germans would not recognise that they were Jews. Such teaching was particularly useful for people who had obtained so-called Aryan papers which were forged documents certifying that a person was non-Jewish or Christian.  Grodzka-Gużkowska taught the Jews not only Catholic prayers, but also took care of such details as dress or the way they walked.

“I taught Jewish women to walk like this. At first they were completely terrified, I showed them how to do it. They finally understood that the hat wasn’t supposed to be like this, but rather this way, so that the face would be tanned”, she said in an interview with one of the portals.

Grodzka-Gużkowska also took care of Jewish children who managed to escape from the Warsaw Ghetto. Later, after World War II, she became a therapist for autistic children.

In 2008, she was awarded the medal “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem.

She died on 6 January 2014.