Jadwiga Apostoł

Jadwiga Apostoł
Jadwiga Apostoł at Auschwitz, 1942
Born	(1913-12-22)December 22, 1913 Nowy Targ, Austria-Hungary
Died	February 2, 1990(1990-02-02) (aged 76) Nowy Targ, Poland
Nationality	Polish
Other names	Barbara Spytkowska
Known for	Underground Tatra Confederation

Jadwiga Apostoł, or Jadwiga Apostoł-Staniszewska (December 22, 1913 – February 2, 1990) was a Polish teacher in the interwar period, an underground activist during World War II, and a writer in postwar Poland. Under the German occupation of Podhale, Apostoł (nom-de-guerre Barbara Spytkowska) became the co-founder of the Polish resistance group called the Tatra Confederation (Polish: Konfederacja Tatrzańska), a.k.a. Confederation of the Tatra Mountains, actively opposing the germanization of the Polish highlanders.

Apostoł survived Auschwitz and Malchow Nazi concentration camps, as well as Leipzig Arbeitslager before returning to Poland. After the Soviet liberation – as the only executive-member of the Tatra Confederation who was still alive – she was persecuted by the Ministry of Public Security and sentenced to five years in prison on trumped-up charges. Released the same year thanks to an amnesty, she was permanently barred from her occupation as a teacher. Jadwiga Apostoł spent the rest of her life in Szczecin. She returned to Podhale shortly before her death and was buried in Nowy Targ.

Jadwiga Apostoł was born in Nowy Targ, the oldest of three children of Wincenty Apostoł, organist and choir master, and Magdalena née Czubernat, a dressmaker. In 1932 Jadwiga graduated from the Teachers' College and got a job at an elementary school in Nowogródek – far away from home. She came back from Kresy to Nowy Targ in 1939, only to witness the invasion of Poland. Immediately afterwards, her family began to smuggle Polish officers (who were escaping arrest) across the border to Slovakia and Hungary on their way to Polish military formations abroad.