Writer, head of the foreign cipher bureau of the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) and the Home Army (AK), editor of the Znak for many years.
The best have fallen […] we must replace them, if not match them, she explained her involvement in the underground conspiracy.
She believed that “a wise woman does not need to pay any attention to what a fierce man says.” She was born on 21 June 1911 in Jordanowice near Grodzisk Mazowiecki. After completing her education at the Union of Lublin State Gymnasium for Girls in Lublin, she began her studies in Polish and history at the Faculty of Humanities of the Catholic University of Lublin, during which she received her first honours and literary prizes.
After gaining a master’s degree in philosophy, she chose to become a teacher of history and philosophy propaedeutics. She continued to develop her writing talent, writing more books (including The Iron Crown).
Her work was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. From the beginning of September 1939, she was involved in an organisation to help wounded soldiers. Together with her sisters Halina and Maria, she delivered essential provisions on foot to even the most advanced outposts at the front.
After the capitulation of Warsaw, Malewska joined the Polish Victory Service (later the Union of Armed Struggle and the Home Army), where she was handed the leadership of the Foreign Cipher Bureau. As a cryptographer with the pseudonym “Hania”, she was in touch with the Polish government-in-exile, based in Paris and later in London.
At the behest of the Home Army Headquarters, she opened a cell of “Karolinki” female ciphers, in which she employed a dozen or so women. Under clandestine conditions, they organised their work in places where other noises drowned out the sounds of the cipher machines. Their tasks included the transmission of texts and archiving, but above all the decryption and encryption of about 50 typewritten pages a day.
During the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, she served as a liaison officer and took an active part in the fighting. For her services she was promoted to the rank of officer and awarded the Golden Cross of Merit with Swords and the Cross of Valour. In 1944, together with a transport of civilians, she left Warsaw and went to Kraków. There she returned to writing; shortly afterwards, she published the
novel “Kamienie wołać będą”, (The rocks will cry out) which she completed before the war.
Over the following years, she published her texts in Tygodnik Powszechny (The Common Weekly) and edited the monthly magazine Znak. In 1960, she became editor-in-chief of ‘Znak’. In 1970, she published her last book, and three years later she retired and withdrew from public and journalistic activity. She died in Krakow on 27 March 1983 of tuberculosis.
