HELENA MAĆKOWIAK

HELENA MAĆKOWIAK
nee Przybył
*2.7.1902 in Berlin
+2.11.1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee

Helena Maćkowiak was born in Berlin and grew up there in a family of Polish migrant workers. As the eldest of five siblings, she took on considerable responsibility for the household after her father’s death in 1919. She was a member of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association, the “Sokół” Gymnastic Society and, later, the Union of Poles in Germany. Her youth coincided with the 1920s, when Berlin became one of Europe’s leading centres of fashion. Women had won the right to vote, fashion was shifting from the corseted styles of the previous era to the modern silhouettes of the 1920s, and the expanding garment industry was opening up new professional opportunities for women.

After completing an apprenticeship at the E & M Staub fashion salon, whose Jewish owners were forced to close their business in the early 1930s, and qualifying as a master dressmaker, Helena opened her own salon at Mommsenstraße 21 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Her clients included actresses as well as the wives of industrialists, civil servants and diplomats, both Polish and German. The salon was a place for conversation and later also became a meeting place for members of the resistance. Discussions about the war, the political situation and public attitudes, combined with Helena’s own observations, became a source of information for Polish intelligence.

In the autumn of 1941, Jadwiga Neumann recommended Helena to Zygmunt Witczak as someone who could be trusted. Helena joined the ZWZ–AK intelligence network “Stragan” and was given the codename “A I”. She gathered information on bomb damage, armaments factories and public attitudes in Berlin. She also undertook reconnaissance journeys to Bad Berka, Weimar, Bitterfeld, Magdeburg, Hamburg and Kiel, observing railway, industrial and port infrastructure. The Gestapo arrested her on 25 November 1942. After almost a year in pre-trial detention, she was brought before the People’s Court. The trial lasted eight minutes. She was sentenced to death for military espionage.

She may have spent her final night with her sister Stefania, who was preparing to escape from Alt-Moabit Prison. Helena was unable to squeeze through the window bars. She was executed at Plötzensee on 2 November 1943. Her body was transferred to the Anatomical Institute of Professor Hermann Stieve. The location of her grave remains unknown to this day.

Helena Maćkowiak's fashion salon and her flat at the Mommsenstr. 21 was at he same time local contact point for Polish resistance fighters from "Stragan" network.

Contact:
ANNA KRENZ
krenzarch(at)gmail.com
+491772725096