During the Polish-Bolshevik war, Teresa Grodzinska saved many wounded Polish soldiers by carrying them on her own back, under machine-gun fire, across the bridge on the Huczwa River. Taken prisoner herself, she was bestially sliced open with sabres. She was the first woman to have been awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross.

Teresa Grodzińska was born on 20 December 1899 in Jaszowice, near Radom. Her parents, Feliks and Bronisława née Arkuszewska, were landowners and local social activists. Teresa first began her education at home under the guidance of a private teacher, and then continued it in Radom at Maria Gajl’s private Women’s Educational Institution.

The girl managed to reconcile her studies with her activities in the scout movement and in the underground National Youth Organisation. In 1918, at the time when Poland regained its independence after 123 years, Grodzińska began studying at a gardening school in Warsaw. She interrupted it in the spring of 1920 because of the Polish-Soviet War. She enrolled on a sanitary course and did her nursing apprenticeship in one of Warsaw’s hospitals. Soon Teresa and her cousin Janina Zdziarska volunteered for the army. They were sent as nurses to the 4th infantry regiment of the Polish Legions.

Her unit was sent to the front line near Hrubieszów on 18 August 1920. During the bloody fighting with the Bolsheviks near Gródek, Teresa showed extraordinary courage, carrying wounded soldiers across the burning bridge over the Huczwa River, despite the machine-gun fire, saving their lives. The 4th Infantry Regiment of the Legions on 1 September 1920 was attacked by troops of Budyonny’s 1st Horse Army, which was retreating through Hrubieszów after losing the Battle of Komarów the day before.

In one of the villages near this town, Teresa Grodzinska was taken prisoner by the Bolsheviks, who bestially murdered her a few hours later. According to eyewitness accounts, the nurse defended herself with an axe against rape by Budyonny’s drunken Cossacks. During the fight, she was supposed to have killed two of the attackers, and was herself chopped up with sabres, to such an extent that her cousin only recognised her body by the initials on the shreds of her apron. Initially buried in Chelm, her body was later moved to Radom, where she was ceremonially buried on 18 September 1920.

Teresa Grodzinska was posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross as the first woman in Poland.