Marusarzówna, Helena, born 17-01-1918 in Zakopane, Poland. daughter of Jan Marusarz and Helena from the Tatara family, sister of Stanisław Marusarz
, graduated from a business school in Zakopane. As a child, Stanislow showed great skills in skiing . In the years 1936-1939 Helena was the best Polish skiing competitor. Seven-time champion of Poland in competitions: alpine skiing , slalom and combined.
Stanisław Marusarz soon became involved in conspiratorial activities in the ZWZ (14-02-1942, AK), and from October 1939 he served as a courier between Zakopane and Budapest. His task was to bring people to Hungary and transfer conspiratorial materials and money. In the spring of 1940 he was detained by the Slovak border guard and taken to the post in Štrbské Pleso, from where he managed to escape through a window. Fortunately, he reached Żak Hlavaj, who lived in the town of Wychodna. There he rested and continued his journey to Zakopane. Stanislaw survived the war and died age 80 on 29-10-1993 in Zakopane
From September 1939 Helena took part in the Polish resistance movement, and from October worked as a secret courier of the “Zagroda” unit of the Conspiracy Interconnection Department at the Main Command of SZP-ZWZ (Service for the Victory of Poland – Association for Armed Fighting) to the base “Romek” in Budapest, transporting mail and bringing people over the mountain route. She was captured by the Slovak gendarmerie in March 1940 and handed over to the Gestapo.
Heinrich Himmler
also Reichsführer SS, became commander of the Gestapo on 20-04-1934 and his close colleague Reinhard Heydrich
took over the day-to-day management (with subordinate “Gestapo” Heinrich Müller).
Helena was held in prisons in Muszyna, Nowy Sącz,
in the Gestapo headquarters in Zakopane “Palace”, Tarnów and Kraków. She was tortured several times and did not betray any secret information, but the Gestapo found a letter in Hungarian in her parcel and after a few months associated it with Stefania Hanauskówna.
The women were executed in a ravine in the Kruk Forest in Skrzyszów. “Six women stood above the pits. Apparently, Hanauska was the first to be ordered to turn around. She refused, shouting: ‘Shoot the Polish chest – I am going to my God! Polish women know how to die!’” She was the first to die, because when the grave was dug up in September 1957, her body was at the very bottom of the pit. It rests to this day in a separate grave, in the ravine of the Kruk Forest.
Death and burtial ground of Marusarzówna, Helena.



Shot on 12-09-1941 in Pogórska Wola (Tarnów district), according to another version executed on 23-07-1941 in the Kruk forest in Skrzyszowo, near Tarnów together with Janina Bednarska
and Stefania Hanauskówna and 3 other women. After exhumation, her ashes were solemnly buried on 27-11-1958 at the Cemetery of Meritorious Persons in Zakopane. In the underground since 1940 – Janina was an intelligence officer in the ZWZ Tarnów district inspectorate, where she worked, among others, with Stefania Hanauskówna, with whom she was arrested in the autumn of 1940. She was also imprisoned on Tarnów and Montelupich Streets in Kraków and was subsequently shot together with Stefania Hanauska and three other women in the Kruk Forest near Skrzyszów.
Helena Marusarzówna is buried at the Pęksowy Brzyzek National Cemetery in Zakopane, Poland.

Leave a Reply