Mathematics student, participant in a secret course
Several female students of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Poznań took part in a secret cryptology course, which was organised by Professor Zdzisław Krygowski at the request of Polish intelligence in 1929.
For the time being, we do not know their names.
The participation of female students in the secret cryptology course that produced the ultimate Enigma conquerors is evident from Marian Rejewski’s account. The course was strictly classified, its participants were obliged to keep it undercover. Therefore, we do not know the names of the women who found themselves among the 23 initiated persons. What do we know about them?
They must have been born between 1907 and 1910, and they were by no means the exception in mathematics studies. In the academic year 1928/1929, women accounted for 43% of all mathematics students at the University of Poznan. It is worth mentioning that Professor Krygowski’s own assistant was Lidia Seipelt, who defended her doctoral thesis in mathematics.
We know that none of the female participants of the course were among the eight students of mathematics who, in 1930, took up employment at the Poznan branch of the Polish Army Cipher Bureau. What could they have done after the course? Probably they worked in science or found employment in education. It is possible that during the war they worked in the secret communication cells of underground organisations such as the Union of Armed Struggle or the Home Army. Perhaps they were couriers, or perhaps one of them took part in the Warsaw Uprising?
If they survived the war, they probably took up a new job at school or university, teaching or teaching mathematics. We can assume that they never boasted of having participated in a pre-war secret cryptology course of the Polish intelligence service. It was too dangerous in communist Poland and, by 1956, even risked death. They probably lived out their days among people unaware of an important episode in their lives. To this day, the knowledge of the names of these women and their subsequent fates is still an undiscovered mystery.
We want to bring them back to the collective memory, because they deserve it.
