Halina Krahelska

Who was Halina Krahelska?

Halina Krahelska was a Polish activist, publicist and writer. Member of the Polish Socialist Party, arrested by the Russian authorities and deported to Russia, where she joined the Trudoviks and took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Afterwards she returned to independent Poland, where she became a socialist activist, particularly interested in the issues of social welfare, and an activist of the Democratic Party. She also wrote novels. During World War II she joined the Polish resistance. Arrested by the Germans, she was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died. Before her death, she wrote several works in the concentration camp, some related to her experiences in the camp, others continuing her work as a socialist activist.

After the war, Polish Inspection of Labor created an award named after her.

Coming from a long family line of women patriots, Halina Krahelska was a sister of Krystyna Krahelska, poet and resistance member who died in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. She was also a cousin of Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz, a leading figure in the Warsaw's underground resistance movement who was a wife of a former ambassador to Washington and who — at the age of twenty — took part in an assassination attempt on the Russian governor-general of Warsaw.