Medical care for casualties during the Warsaw Uprising in the Powiśle area Anna Marek
T
he outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944 was not a great surprise. The Home Army1 had been preparing for it practically since the beginning of the German occupation of Poland.2 The Uprising’s command
treated its underground medical services and facilities for casualties as one of the priorities in the work to be done in advance. Units preparing for combat in the city identified and inspected the hospitals and other medical facilities in their
About the author: Anna Marek is a lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine of Lazarski University in Warsaw, where she teaches history of medicine.
She graduated from the Faculty of History at the University of Warsaw. Her doctoral degree and habilitation were obtained from the Ludwik and Aleksandra Birkenmajer Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Her research interests cover medicine in the 19th century and during the Second World War, with a special focus on the Warsaw Uprising, to which she devoted her MA and habilitation theses as well as a number of articles. She is the author of Leczenie ran wojennych w Powstaniu Warszawskim 1 sierpnia–2 października 1944 [Treating war wounds during the Warsaw Uprising, 1 August to 2 October 1944].
1
The Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) was the underground resistance organisation in occupied Poland subject to the authority of the Polish government-in-exile. It was established on 14 February 1942 in outcome of the union of all the Polish military resistance forces active in occupied Poland.
2
A detailed schedule of the plans for an armed rising against the Germans and Soviets o ccupying Poland was defined in the order issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army on 20 November 1943. See Polskie Siły Zbrojne . . ., 651.
