Barbara PIOTROWSKA-GANCARCZYK
Barbara Bogumiła Gancarczyk, née Piotrowska, was born to Czeslaw and Cecilia (nee Wojcik) in Warsaw on 18 April 1923. In 1939 she graduated from the Nazarethine Sisters' Middle School. During the occupation, she attended secret classes, obtaining her matriculation exams in 1941. Then she took part in secret classes at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology.
In 1942, joined the Home Army battalion "Wigry."
She was a nurse during the Warsaw Uprising. From 2 August to 6 August 1944, she served in the insurgent hospital at 1 Marianska Street, and from 7 August in the second platoon of the assault company of the "Wigry" battalion in the Old Town. On 16 August 1944, together with a colleague from the unit, Teresa Potulicka-Latynska, she helped to carry the Baryczkowski Crucifix out of the burning cathedral. She remained with wounded soldiers in the Old Town until the fall of the district and the German invasion on 2 September 1944.
She was awarded the Cross of Valour during the Uprising. After the Uprising, she was sent to the Dulag 121 camp in Pruszkow, and then to a labour camp in Wroclaw.
After the war, she worked as an architect in the Office for the Reconstruction of the Capital in Warsaw. She participated in the exhumations of insurgents in Warsaw's Old Town.
She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Warsaw in 1952. She then worked in Architecture & Design offices.
She was awarded:
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the Silver Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari (16 April 1975),
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the (received during the Uprising),
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the Military Medal (1948),
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the Cross of the Home Army (1971),
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the Partisan Cross (1972),
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the Medal for Warsaw (1973),
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the Warsaw Insurgent Cross (1982),
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the (2007),
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the
On 14 December 2015, she was awarded the rank of Major in the Polish Army.
SOURCE: Online Facebook posts
(translated from the original Polish)