She was born on 28 February 1920 in Warsaw. She served in the Grey Ranks underground scout organisation and was the designer of the Anchor, the symbol of Fighting Poland and the Polish underground Home Army during the 2nd World War. Arrested by the Germans in the autumn of 1942, she was sent to the Pawiak prison and then to Auschwitz, where she died on 19 March 1943.
From 1931, she was a member of the Polish counting movement. She attended the Juliusz Słowacki Gymnasium in Warsaw, and after completing her exams in 1938, she started art history studies at the University of Warsaw.
During the German occupation, she studied at an agriculture school, where she received academic studies from the pre-war lecturers of Warsaw’s Life Sciences University. At the same time, she attended an underground communications course.
In the Grey Ranks, she was active in the unit of the so-called “small sabotage” called Wawer, along with a group of Girl Scouts.
In the early months of 1942, the Office of Information and Propaganda announced a competition for a sign for the Polish Underground State organisation. From among 27 designs, Smolenska’s project was chosen: the Anchor, which combined the letter “P” for Poland (Polska) with “W” for struggle (walcząca).
“The Anchor” or Kotwica in Polish became the basic graphic symbol of the Polish Underground State.
The first time the Anchor was placed on walls in Warsaw was on 20 March 1942 by members of the Wawer organisation.
On 3 November 1942, after an unsuccessful attempt to arrest the editor-in-chief of the Home Army information newspaper, Aleksander Kamiński and his secretary, Maria Straszewska, the Germans detained Anna Smoleńska together with her parents, Eugenia and Kazimierz, her sister Janina, and her brother Stanisław and his wife Danuta.
All members of the Smoleński family were placed in the infamous Pawiak prison. On 27 November, the Germans transported Anna, her mother, sister, brother and sister-in-law and sent them to the Auschwitz Death Camp.
None of the women in the Smoleński family survived the camp. Anna’s brother’s wife, Danuta, a lawyer, lost her life on 13 January 1943. Her mother, Eugenia, a chemical engineer, died on 8 March 1943, and her sister, Janina, a doctor of chemistry and biology, died four days later.
Anna Smoleńska’s death certificate was issued by the Germans on 30 March 1943, stating 19 March as the date of her death. The cause was said to be “pleurisy”.
Only her brother, Stanisław, survived the war after being transferred to a different camp. He came back to Warsaw after the war and worked at the Polish Radio. He died in 1986.
Source: Dzieje.pl, IPN
Photo: IPN. Colourisation: Mikołaj Kaczmarek
Tomasz Modrzejewski
