Metadata: Papers of Pola Wawer (1914-1997)
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Holding institution (official language):
- Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma
- Postal address:
- ul. Tłomackie 3/5, 00-090 Warszawa
- Phone number:
- +48 (22) 827 92 21
- Email:
- secretary@jhi.pl
- Reference number:
- 312/S/309
- Title:
- Papers of Pola Wawer (1914-1997)
- Title (official language):
- Spuścizna Poli Wawer (1914-1997)
- Creator/accumulator:
- Wawer, Pola
- Date(s):
- 1908/1997
- Date note:
- 1908; 1914-1997
- Language:
- Polish
- French
- Russian
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- 0.6 linear metres (57 archival units)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection includes:
No. 1-7. Biographical materials: private documents - birth certificates, marriage certificates, citizenship certificates, residency registration papers, family tree; CVs; personal surveys; diplomas and certificates; passports and ID cards; medals; private photographs;
No. 9-11 : Various written materials: Childhood Reminiscences, a manuscript; Outside the Ghetto and the Camp, typescript, materials for publication;
No. 13-26 Materials related to professional activities, individual work places: certificates, ID cards, photographs, distinctions, diplomas for professional and social work;
No. 27-34 Materials regarding the Jewish Orphanage in Bielsko: documents regarding the establishment of the institution; activity report plans; Pola Komaj's presentations; orphans’ court files; reminiscences of pupils; documents regarding the orphans’ self-government; children's correspondence; souvenirs;
No. 35-37 Materials concerning public activities: documents of party activities; distinctions; ID cards;
No. 38-48 Family records: personal documents, testimonies, photographs and documents regarding the professional work of Pola’s mother Maria Komaj, Dona Komaj and Mikołaj Landau;
No. 49-56 Non-family records: photographs of family and friends;
No. 57 Miscellaneous: notebooks, brochures, bills.
- Archival history:
- Pola Wawer’s papers were donated to the Jewish Historical Institute in 1999 by one of the children from the orphanage, Ewa Wejcher-Kulikowska. They were put in order in 2003. There were no missing papers.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Pola Wawer née Komaj, was born in 1914 in Troki near Vilna; she died in 1997. She was an ophthalmologist and pedagogue. In 1938 she graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Stefan Batory in Vilna. She started her professional career at the Eye Department of the Railway Hospital in Vilna, from where she was dismissed as a Jew by the German Nazi authorities. She survived the war hiding with her mother in the Vilna region. After liberation, she lived in Białystok, working for the Jewish Committee, Bielsko; she managed the Jewish Orphanage there for 5 years. In 1950, she moved to Warsaw, where she was deputy head of the Department of Health and Social Security from 1950-1953. From 1953 she worked in the Ministry of Health, and from 1958 in the City Hospital No. 4. After the war, she developed the first standard for visual requirements for vehicle drivers. In 1961 she obtained a first degree of specialisation in ophthalmology and a year later she began working at the Doctor's Training Centre of the Medical Academy. She defended her doctoral dissertation in 1970 on "Zonunolysis in cataract surgery". In 1994, she published the book Outside the Ghetto and the Camp, which she dedicated to the people who saved her own and her mother's life.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Komaj, Dona
- Komaj, Maria
- Komaj, Pola
- Landau, Mikołaj
- Finding aids:
- A printed inventory is accessible in the reading room of the Jewish Historical Institute.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Agnieszka Reszka, Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, 2019