Anna Stupnicka-Bando
Honorary Citizen of Warsaw since 20th June 2024.
Medical doctor, president of the Polish Society of the Righteous Among the Nations. She has been associated with Warsaw since she was a child.
After moving out of Końskie, where her father held the position of a starosta, she and her mother settled in Warsaw at Mickiewicz Street. In September 1939, due to the employment of her mother, who had graduated from the Higher School of Political Science and was working in the army, ten-year-old Anna had to evacuate Warsaw with her family. Despite leaving the capital with the Polish army, they did not cross the border into Romania. In December 1939, they returned to Warsaw's Żoliborz district. Anna's mother found employment as a report-keeper and also joined the conspiracy. In between her lessons at clandestine classes and her scouting activities, Anna Stupnicka helped with the work of the underground. In their apartment, they also provided support for Jews, for example, Ryszard Grynberg and Mikołaj Borenstein. In 1941, together with her mother, she led Liliana Alter, daughter of Bund activist Hilary, out of the Warsaw ghetto who then settled with them in Żoliborz.
The Warsaw Uprising found her in the basement of one of the houses in Żoliborz, where, together with others, she was preparing a medical point of the Second "Żywiciel" District of the Home Army. As a medical orderly, she showed remarkable heroism, devoting herself wholeheartedly to saving the lives and health of the fighting insurgents and civilians.
Her activities were not limited to wartime. After it ended, Mrs. Anna continued her service to others as a doctor. In 2014, she was appointed as the president of the Polish Society of the Righteous Among the Nations. It brings together people who, risking their own lives, saved Jews during the Holocaust. As part of the Society, it actively works to commemorate these heroic acts and to spread the idea of humanity, empathy and helping one's fellow man. In 1983, Anna Stupnicka-Bando and her mother, Janina Stupnicka, were awarded medals of the Righteous Among the Nations.
The life of Anna Stupnicka-Bando and her social activities are inseparably connected with the history of Warsaw and Poland, and her merits for the City and its inhabitants, through her fight for freedom, dignity, and human life, deserve the highest recognition.
Awarded with, among others: Commander's Cross of the Order of Rebirth of Poland and the "Pro Patria" Medal.
Title awarded by resolution of the Council of the Capital City of Warsaw No. VI/107/2024