Wanda Przybylska was only fourteen years old when she wrote the last sentences of her diary in burning Warsaw. Her notes from the occupation years survived the war and became one of the most important testimonies of children’s experiences during World War II.
Life in the Occupied Capital
Warsaw in the 1940s was a city full of contradictions. German occupiers controlled every aspect of life, yet residents maintained the appearance of normalcy. Wanda Przybylska grew up in this divided reality at 6 Pańska Street, in the very heart of the city. Her parents, Zdzisław and Jadwiga, were teachers – a particularly dangerous profession at a time when the Nazis were systematically eliminating the Polish intelligentsia.
In 1942, when Wanda was twelve years old, two Jewish women appeared in the Przybylski apartment. Maria and Julia Szliferstein hid there for two years, until the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. For teenage Wanda, this was a daily reality requiring constant vigilance. Every knock on the door could mean the end – certain death for the hidden women, execution for the Przybylski family for helping Jews.
Wanda kept a diary, recording her observations of the occupied city. Her notes from July 1942 were still relatively calm, full of typical teenage concerns. Over time, however, the tone changed. Daily violence, hunger, executions in the streets – all of this seeped onto the pages of her diary. The girl wrote matter-of-factly, without unnecessary pathos, as if documenting natural phenomena.
The Przybylski family represented the type of attitudes that saved Poland’s honor in the darkest times. Hiding Jews in the center of Warsaw, where German vigilance was particularly strong, required extraordinary courage. The older daughter Jadwiga, code name „Iga,” worked in the underground as a medic. The family’s entire life was subordinated to a double game – the appearance of normalcy on the outside and systematic resistance on the inside.
The Diary as Historical Testimony
Wanda wrote for two years, from 1942 until the end of August 1944. Her notes differed from typical teenage diaries. Alongside a school essay titled „Warsaw in Twenty Years,” in which she dreamed of a rebuilt city, there appeared brutal descriptions of wartime reality. This duality – dreams of the future and descriptions of present-day nightmares – made the diary a unique document of the era.
In July 1944, the atmosphere in Warsaw thickened with each passing day. The front was approaching from the east, the Red Army had reached the suburbs. The Germans tightened their terror, sensing impending defeat. Wanda recorded the growing tension, rumors of an approaching uprising, and underground preparations. Her observations were remarkably perceptive for a fourteen-year-old.
When the Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1, 1944, Wanda sat on the balcony, watching the clock and counting down the minutes. She recorded this moment with almost journalistic distance, though her trembling hands betrayed her emotions. The following days brought chaos, bombardment, and death. The diary became increasingly chaotic, sentences breaking off mid-thought, as if there was no time to finish.
The insurgents counted on Soviet help from across the Vistula River. The Red Army stopped, however, and watched as the Germans methodically destroyed the city and murdered its defenders. Wanda described hunger, shelling, and burning tenements. Her notes from this period resembled „The Diary of Anne Frank” – the same sense of threat, the same hope struggling with despair.
Death in Powiśle
On September 4, 1944, the Germans set fire to the Ursuline convent on Gęsta Street, where some civilians had taken shelter. Wanda Przybylska fled the burning building with others. A shell fragment struck her fatally. She was fourteen years old. Her older sister Jadwiga survived the war, working as a medic in the field hospital of the „Chrobry II” grouping.
Wanda’s diary survived thanks to her parents, who lived through the war. In 1969, it was published for the first time in Poland, twenty-five years after the author’s death. The publication met with enormous interest – it was an authentic testimony, unprocessed by adult sensibility.
The diary’s international career began with a Danish translation, followed by Italian, French, and German editions. Most surprising was the Japanese edition – in a culturally distant country, the notes of a Polish girl found readers. Everywhere, the diary met with a similar reaction – moved by the authenticity and maturity of observations.
In 1985, a second Polish edition appeared under the title „A Piece of My Heart: Diary from the War Years.” Henryk Grynberg, a writer and Holocaust survivor, read the diary and found Zdzisław and Jadwiga Przybylski. He applied for their recognition as Righteous Among the Nations. Maria and Julia Szliferstein survived the war thanks to this family’s courage.
A Legacy Written in Pencil
Wanda Przybylska’s diary today belongs to the canon of Polish personal documentary literature. Compared to „The Diary of Anne Frank,” it has a similar power of expression with a different character. Anne Frank wrote in hiding, cut off from the world. Wanda lived at the epicenter of events, observing the war from the balcony of her tenement.
Her notes became the basis for education about the Warsaw Uprising and the Holocaust. Schools use fragments of the diary as source material – a child’s voice speaks to young readers more powerfully than dry facts from textbooks. Wanda wrote in simple language, without grand words, but her testimony has universal significance.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
- https://www.1944.pl/powstancze-biogramy/wanda-przybylska,36344.html
- https://jedynka.polskieradio.pl/artykul/2566550,Wanda-Przybylska-Jedna-z-najbole%C5%9Bniej-dla-naszej-kultury-zapomnianych-postaci
Margot Cleverly
Margot's journey into women's history began with a box of forgotten letters in a Cambridge archive – suffragettes whose voices had been silenced for over a century. Since then, she's been on a mission to uncover the stories history overlooked.
What she writes about: Queens who ruled from the shadows. Scientists whose male colleagues took credit. Revolutionaries who risked everything. But also ordinary women – those who survived wars, raised families through upheaval, and shaped their communities in ways no one bothered to record.
Margot turns historical figures into real people. She writes with warmth and detail, making centuries-old stories feel surprisingly relevant. Rigorous research meets accessible storytelling – no dusty academic jargon, just compelling narratives backed by solid facts.
When she's not writing, you'll find her in regional archives, collecting oral histories, or visiting sites connected to the women she writes about.