Born: July 18, 1898 in Skole, Stryj province, Stanisławów voivodship, Poland
Died: May 21, 1980 in London, Great Britain
Married: She married Józef Obertyński (died 1937) in 1918
Fates before joining Anders Army : Daugther of the poet Maryla Wolska and Wacław Wolski – a pioneer of the Polish oil industry, founder of the newspaper “Słowo Polskie” in Lviv. It was in this newspaper that she made her debut as a poet in 1924 with her poem “Z pokłonem” (“With respect”). She lived near Lviv. A graduate of the National of Theater Arts in Warsaw. In the years 1933-1937 an actress of theaters in Lviv, author of dramas. Then she devoted herself only to literary work – poetry. Before World War II, she considered one of the best Polish poets of that time. She published her books of poems.
After the outbreak of World War II, she took care of refugees in her family home near Lviv until the possession of the property and the arrest of Beata Obertyńska by the Soviets on July 21, 1940. Imprisoned in Lviv, Kiev, Odessa, Kherson, Kharkiv and Starobielsk she was sentenced on May 17, 1940 by the NKVD court to 5 years in a labor camp and imprisoned in 1941 in concentration camp in Vorkuta. Released from the labor camp under the Sikorski-Maisky Agreement, together with other Polish refugees, she made a dramatic journey to the south of the USSR, where in February 1942 she joined the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR under the command of General W. Anders in Uzbekistan. She described her experiences from the USSR in the book “In the house of captivity” published in Rome in 1946 under the pseudonym Marta Rudzka.
Military history: In the Polish 2nd Corps Beata Obertyńska initially worked as a nurse and then as a soldier (in the rank of lieutenant) of the Education Department of the 2nd Corps. She traveled the entire trail of the Polish troops from the USSR through the Middle East to Italy. Then, in 1946, together with Polish troops, she reached Great Britain.
Post-War: Beata Obertyńska decided to stay in exile, because after 1945 her home area was incorporated into the Soviet Union. She continued her literary work, writing and publishing volumes of poems, novels, as well as a number of articles in the Polish émigré press: “Dziennik Polski – Dziennik Żołnierza”, “Polska Walcząca”, “Orzeł Biały”. Winner of emigration literary awards. Considered the best Polish émigré woman poet. She participated in a number of artistic and patriotic events of Poles in Great Britain. She was never allowed to return to her beloved Poland. She died in London in 1980 and parished on Peksowy Brzysek cemetery in Zakopane, Poland.
author: Aneta Hoffmann, Warsaw, Poland
