Małgorzata Fornalska (

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

: ''Jasia''; 8 June 1902 – 26 July 1944) was a Polish communist activist and anti-

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

resistance fighter.

Biography

Fornalska was born in Fajsławice to a family of communist activists. From 1918, she was a member of the

Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania The Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania ( pl, Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy, SDKPiL), , LKLSD), originally the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP), was a Marxist political party founded in 1893 and ...

and the

Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks) "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...

as well as the

Communist Party of Poland The interwar Communist Party of Poland ( pl, Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) was a communist party active in Poland during the Second Polish Republic. It resulted from a December 1918 merger of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland a ...

. From July–December 1918 she worked at orphanages in Saratov and Petrovsk. In January 1920, Fornalska returned to Poland and worked for the

Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee ( pl, Tymczasowy Komitet Rewolucyjny Polski, Polrewkom; russian: Польревком) (July–August 1920) was a revolutionary committee created under the patronage of Soviet Russia with the goal to e ...

together with her brother Aleksander. Later, she studied at the

Sverdlov Communist University The Sverdlov Communist University ( Russian: Коммунистический университет имени Я. М. Свердлова) was a school for Soviet activists in Moscow, founded in 1918 as the Central School for Soviet and Party Work ...

and the

International Lenin School The International Lenin School (ILS) was an official training school operated in Moscow, Soviet Union, by the Communist International from May 1926 to 1938. It was resumed after the Second World War and run by the Communist Party of the Soviet Uni ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

. Fornalska was arrested and imprisoned several times for her communist activity in Poland in the 1930s. After being released in 1939, she went to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, where she worked with other exiled Polish communists. In the spring of 1942 she was parachuted into Poland, then occupied by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, in order to organize the communist resistance against the occupation.Jerzy Eisler, ''Siedmiu wspaniałych. Poczet pierwszych sekretarzy KC PZPR'' he Magnificent Seven: first secretaries of the PZPR p. 55. Wydawnictwo Czerwone i Czarne, Warszawa 2014, . She was elected to the Central Committee of the newly formed

Polish Workers' Party The Polish Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 194 ...

and worked as one of the editors of the party's newspaper, ''Trybuna Wolności''. On 14 November 1943, Fornalska was arrested by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

and imprisoned in Serbia Prison. She was executed by the Germans in the ruins of the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

on 26 July 1944. Posthumously, Fornalska was awarded the

Order of the Cross of Grunwald The Order of the Cross of Grunwald (') was a military decoration created in Poland in November 1943 by the High Command of Gwardia Ludowa, a World War II Polish resistance movement organised by the Polish Workers Party. On 20 February 1944 it w ...

, 1st class, in 1948.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fornalska, Małgorzata 1902 births 1944 deaths Communist Party of Poland politicians Deaths by firearm in Poland People who died in the Warsaw Ghetto Polish resistance members of World War II Polish Workers' Party politicians Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Grunwald, 1st class Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania politicians People from Krasnystaw County People from Lublin Governorate