Mural in honour of Halina Szwarc

The mural at Organizacji WiN 10 in Bałuty, Łódź commemorates Halina Szwarc, an intelligence agent of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) and later a physician and founder of Polish gerontology. It was created on the tenement house where she lived, on the former Dworska Street.

Intelligence agent in occupied Europe

Halina Szwarc was born on 5 May 1923 in Łódź. During the Second World War she worked as an intelligence agent for the Home Army under the pseudonyms Ryszard and Jacek II, gathering information in Vienna, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich. In 1944 the Gestapo arrested her and tortured her in Łódź, and the court sentenced her to death. The sentence was not carried out.

Founder of the University of the Third Age

After the war Szwarc completed her medical studies and specialised in gerontology, obtaining the title of professor of medical sciences. In 1975 she founded Poland's first University of the Third Age, an institution educating older people, which became a model for subsequent institutions of this type in the country. In 2000 she was decorated with the Order of Polonia Restituta. She died on 28 May 2002 in Warsaw.

Mural by community initiative

The work was created in 2017 on the initiative of the local Bałuty community. The artists are Piotr Chrzanowski and Alan Osiecki, and financing was provided by the Warsaw Society for Creative Initiatives "ę", which allocated over 10,000 złotys for the project.

What the composition depicts

The mural combines two planes: the pre-war Bałuty of the past and scenes from the heroine's wartime activities, including bombers flying towards Hamburg, where she conducted intelligence operations. The composition is completed by two portraits of Halina Szwarc, a large one in profile and a smaller one shown from the front.

The district where she grew up

Bałuty, an independent city before the war and later incorporated into Łódź, is a working-class district with a turbulent occupation history. The placement of the mural on the tenement house where Halina Szwarc lived, on the former Dworska Street, directly links her biography to this place. The mural appears in street art guides to Bałuty as one of the points on a local route of murals commemorating residents of the district.

Practical information

• Address: ul. Organizacji WiN 10, Bałuty, Łódź. The street's former name is Dworska.
• The mural is on the external wall of the tenement house, accessible from street level at all times.
• No ticket or advance booking required.