Given name: Władka Family name: Meed

  • YES
  • Female
  • Władka
  • Meed
  • Peltel
  • Fajgele Peltel, Władysława Kowalska, Michalina Markowska, Michalina Wojczek, Stanisława Wąchalska, Władysława Międzyrzecka
  • Yes
  • Jewish

  • the author of memoirs. During the First Action she loses her mother and brother. After the liquidation of the Small Ghetto she works in the Toebbens' workshops at Leszno Street No. 80, lives at Nowolipie Street No. 69 with four friends. She is in a round-up in Mila Street. At the beginning of December as Wladyslawa Kowalska, later under other surnames. She is an active member of the underground. She crosses to the ghetto a number of times carrying reports, underground press and weapons. On the "Aryan side" her task is to get weapons and find hideouts for women and children from the ghetto. She offered Mania Zygielbojm a hideout for her and her son Artek - without success. For the last time she was in the ghetto on the eve of the uprising. After the uprising on behalf of Coordinating Commission for Jewish Social Welfare Institutions (KK) she deals with help for rescued Jews. For a few days Abrasza Blum hides in her flat, they get arrested and detained in a cell in a building in Denilowiczowa Street. One day later she gets out thanks to a big bribe organised by KK, after Anna Wachalska had got a message from prison. She deals with examining applications for help to the ZKK, monitors various hideouts in the city and in the suburbs of Warsaw, travels around Poland with money, clothes and food for hiding Jews. She visits the hiding ones in Radzyminska Street: thanks to her intervention and a bribe a Pole, who hides them does not throws them away to the street. In the street she meets Jews, who must be given money, forged documents or information. She regularly keeps in touch with Poles who hid Jews. At the end of 1943 she buys a small flat from her friend Bronka at Twarda Street No. 36, near the ghetto wall. 8 May 1943 in "mother's", Anna Wachalska's, flat Wladka organises a name's day party as "Stanislawa Wachalska": around 20 young hiding Jews came to the party. Wladka actively helps build hideouts for people in her care. She undertakes a dangerous mission: without a travel permit, she gets to the countryside, to a group of refugees from the Czestochowa ghetto. She establishes contacts with prisoners from labour camps in Rakow and Radom. When the Warsaw Uprising breaks out, together with Warsowians she goes to build barricades. For some time she hides with Benjamin in his bunker at the corner of Sienna and Sosnowa Streets. After the uprising's failure she goes for orders to her bosses at Zurawia Street No. 24. She has to make the decision herself. Four days after the uprising's failure she leaves Warsaw with Benjamin. They both get to a labour camp in Germany, and they escape to Poland. A few months after the uprising's failure they find their friends from ZKK in a town near Grodzisk. She comes back to the ghetto to wander among deserted ruins.

  • Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943
  • activists

  • industrious and brave

  • Meed, Wladka; On Both Sides of the Wall. Memoirs from the Warsaw Ghetto