Superheroes, especially those known from American publications and films, often have some super powers and are usually focused on fighting against the evil. The hero of this comic book focused mostly on creating the good. Incredibly brave and ready to sacrifice, she had enormous faith in another human being because, as she would say, “there are good people everywhere.” Wanda Błeńska was closely connected with two cities: Poznań, where she was born and studied medicine, and Torun, where she spent her childhood and early adolescence. It was in Copernicus’s town that she started her medical practice and continued it there after the outbreak of World War II. She showed her intrepid personality when under a pseudonym of ‘Szarotka’ she risked her life in the underground activity of the ‘Pomeranian Griffin’. She worked with other famous women from Toruń: a teacher, Janina Bartkiewiczówna, and doctors, Zofia Kordylewska and Anna Dydyńska-Paszkowska. She didn’t escape getting arrested by the Gestapo. Thorough all her life she cared more about others than herself. Hidden in a coal compartment on a ship and then among transport boxes, she travelled hundreds of miles to find her severely ill brother, imprisoned in a German oflag. Helping others was the purpose of her life and that was why she became interested in tropical medicine – she dreamed of becoming a missionary in Africa. After a few-month course in Great Britain and over a year of trying to get a visa, Doctor Błeńska managed to leave for exotic Uganda. Despite many inconveniences (no power, no medicines, or equipment), for 43 years she was the only doctor in the region, helping thousands of patients. The ‘Mother of Lepers’ always welcomed her patients with a smile – she was their beloved ‘Docta’, who saved their lives. She usually performed surgeries on a camp bed. In order to have more light during procedures, she had part of the roof of the pavilion removed. She did not treat leprosy, but people with leprosy, meaning that she treated all diseases they suffered from. She had to perform complicated plastic surgeries and eye surgeries, amputate limbs, and at night she would read professional books. In Buluba, she helped thousands of Ugandans. “The first fifteen years were the most difficult,” she frankly admitted at the end of her life. With time, the effects of her work – besides hundreds of cured patients – included modern hospital buildings, a training centre for doctors and nurses as well as research on vaccine against leprosy. After she’d returned from Africa, she was happy to meet children and adolescents as well as girls scouts from a team named after her. She would say to young people, “If you have some good noble ideas, cherish them. Don’t let them fall asleep and don’t give up on them! Even if they seem impossible or too difficult to come about. You must cherish your dreams.” Even though she spent almost a quarter of a century on another continent, she never forgot the Polish language, she was interested in what was going on in her country, and she read literature. Over the microscope she would recite her favourite poems she knew by heart. When leaving Uganda, she left 25 chests of books there. “Son, sorry to say this, but it won’t last,” heard Teofil from his mother about his new-born baby girl, Wandzia. But ‘it did last’, and Wanda Błeńska lived 103 years and became one of the legends of the missionary Africa. On the initiative of the Local Government, the regional parliament Sejmik of the Kujawko-Pomorskie Region has declared the brave doctor patron of year 2021 in the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region.
Piotr Całbecki The Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region
ISBN 978-83-959853-6-2
writer
Maciej Jasiński artist
Jacek Michalski