14 studies / 54 · Warsaw — Polish Security Printing Works
PWPW hospital: murder of the seriously wounded and Doctor ‘Rana’
28 August 1944 · Torture, maiming and killing of defenceless people
As the defence of the Polish Security Printing Works was ending, the most seriously wounded remained in the shelter. Dr Hanna Petrynowska did not leave her patients. She died during the German attack, and the wounded were murdered. The documentation confirms the crime, but contains two different versions of the circumstances of the doctor's death, which must be presented honestly. [1] [2]
Editorial account based on the sources listed below. Sources checked: 5 September 2026.
- Victims and toll
- About 30 seriously wounded people according to the Warsaw Rising Museum, and Dr Hanna Petrynowska; the fates of staff require the accounts to be separated.
- Perpetrators
- German soldiers entering the PWPW; the sources used do not securely identify the direct subunit.
- Documented methods
- grenades used against patients in a shelter · murder of the seriously wounded · the death of a doctor while trying to protect patients — differing accounts
Those who stayed with the most seriously wounded
Kinga Mierzejewska describes Petrynowska's work at the field hospital at Sanguszki 1. A paediatrician by profession, the doctor also treated serious wartime injuries. When the PWPW defenders withdrew, evacuation of some patients proved impossible. ‘Rana’ stayed with them; according to accounts cited by IPN, four nurses voluntarily stayed with her. [1]
The attack on the shelter
The IPN study cites the accounts of Maria Kowalska and Janina Barbara Putkowska. It describes grenades thrown from the upper level of the shelter toward wounded people below. Petrynowska tried to stop the attackers by telling them in German that it was a hospital. According to this reconstruction, she was killed by a grenade fragment and the patients left behind were then murdered. [1]
A second version of the doctor's death
The Warsaw Rising Museum biography presents the death of ‘Rana’ differently: a German soldier was said to have shot her while she was performing a procedure after refusing to leave a wounded person. The same entry says that about thirty patients and nurses were murdered with grenades. We do not combine the two versions into an invented sequence of events. [2]
What remains a shared finding
The sources indicate that the doctor consciously remained with people unable to be evacuated and that they were killed after Germans entered. The disagreement over the instrument of Petrynowska's death does not negate those findings. For further research, the complete nurses' records are crucial; the IPN article publishes reproductions and identifies Maria Kowalska's examination of 14 November 1947. [1] [2]
Limits of the findings
The versions of Petrynowska's death conflict; we do not resolve them without analysis of the complete records. The article and descriptions of reproductions were read, but the scans were not fully transcribed. [1] [2]
Sources and notes
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Kinga Mierzejewska. „Doktor Rana”. Hanna Petrynowska. IPN — Przystanek Historia.
Use of this source: Relacje sanitariuszek, granaty, pozostanie z pacjentami i wersja śmierci od odłamka.
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redakcja MPW. Hanna Petrynowska — Powstańcze Biogramy. Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego.
Use of this source: Szacunek około 30 rannych i odmienna wersja śmierci lekarki.
How we assess sources
The evidence base consists primarily of Polish scholarly publications, investigative findings, archives, museums and documented witness accounts. Reliability is assessed through the document’s provenance, scholarly method and the ability to check the finding. Statements by perpetrators and family accounts of perpetrators require especially critical comparison with other material. Two pages from the same institution may repeat one finding; they are not automatically treated as independent confirmation.
Full methodology