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Women in Mathematics pp 67–89Cite as

Making Her Mark on a Century of Turmoil and Triumph: A Tribute to Polish Women in Mathematics

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Part of the book series: Association for Women in Mathematics Series ((AWMS,volume 10))

Abstract

New starts, new beginnings, doubt, excitement, difficulties, and positive outcomes are familiar to most mathematicians. To the women who are the focus of this paper, however, new beginnings meant relocating to a different continent or changing their focus from mathematics to mathematics education. Difficulties included learning and teaching in secret. And positive outcomes meant not only generating new results, but changing the way mathematics was taught in their country, popularizing mathematics much more extensively than ever before, and being free to investigate mathematics to whatever extent they chose. This paper introduces the particular twentieth-century experiences and accomplishments of Polish mathematicians Anna Zofia Krygowska, Zofia Szmydt, and Helena Rasiowa, among others, in the context of Poland during World War II, and acknowledges the contributions of later mathematicians whose work in a new country is ongoing and significant. To supply that context, short descriptions of the development of the Polish School of Mathematics and clandestine education in Poland are provided.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Nazis actually referred to this as Aktion gegen Universitäts Professoren, or action against university professors.

  2. 2.

    Konzentrationslager is the German word for “concentration camp.”

  3. 3.

    The third incarnation occurred in the late 1970s when Poland was under Soviet control.

  4. 4.

    The translations of the titles of these articles and the page numbers were obtained from [11].

  5. 5.

    Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różicki, and Henryk Zygalski were three alumni of Poznań University who broke the Enigma code, allowing them to decrypt German messages until 1938, when the process became too expensive. The Poles then instructed the French and the British in their techniques; the British, having more financial resources, eventually went on to gain much military intelligence from these decryption techniques.

  6. 6.

    The mathematicians Bronisłow Knaster, Władysław Orlicz, Jerzy Albrycht, and Feliks Barański were also pressed into service as louse feeders [12].

  7. 7.

    The Warsaw Uprising was preceded by the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, which was a one-month act of fierce resistance to the imminent complete destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and its inhabitants. The Jews who fought there had a very small cache of weaponry, mostly provided from the meager supply of the Armia Krajowa and the communist Gwardia Ludowa. Thirteen thousand Jews perished in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

  8. 8.

    The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum holds in its collections a clandestinely obtained photograph of Kusmierczuk’s disfigured leg. See Photograph #69339 at collections.ushmm.org.

  9. 9.

    Other mathematicians from the era who won this prize include: Steinhaus and Sierpiński, Władysław Orlicz, Stanisław Mazur, and Adam Bielecki. Bielecki was one of the victims of Sonderaktion Krakau; after the war, he went on to have eleven PhD students.

  10. 10.

    For a detailed discussion of logic in this era, see [52].

  11. 11.

    It is not clear when and where Adolf Lindenbaum was murdered, only that he was [54].

  12. 12.

    At 167.64 cm (5’ 6"), he weighed only 42 kg (92.5 lb) upon his return to Kraków.

  13. 13.

    For further reading on modern mathematical didactics, see, for example, [42].

  14. 14.

    See [52] for background details.

  15. 15.

    The Jewish units of the Armia Krajowa were the Jewish Military Union and the Jewish Combat Organization.

  16. 16.

    A habilitation is a second doctorate, the demands of which vary from country to country and over time. In general, one pursues significant independent research without the guidance of an advisor in order to be habilitated. At one time in Poland’s history, submission of a successful habilitation thesis resulted in a Doctor of Science degree, denoted by DSc. At present, the designation is doktor habilitowany, denoted by dr. hab. before the recipient’s name.

  17. 17.

    To name but a few: Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, 1944; University of Łódź in 1945; University of Szczecin in 1945; Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in 1945; the Pedagogical University of Kraków in 1946; Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences in 1951.

  18. 18.

    This award is given jointly by the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, the Fields Institute, and the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Siena College, Loudonville, NY, USA

    Emelie Agnes Kenney

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  1. Emelie Agnes Kenney
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Correspondence to Emelie Agnes Kenney .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, University of Redlands, Redlands, California, USA

    Janet L. Beery

  2. Department of Mathematics, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, USA

    Sarah J. Greenwald

  3. Department of Mathematics, Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, USA

    Jacqueline A. Jensen-Vallin

  4. Department of Mathematics, Fordham University, Bronx, New York, USA

    Maura B. Mast

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Kenney, E.A. (2017). Making Her Mark on a Century of Turmoil and Triumph: A Tribute to Polish Women in Mathematics. In: Beery, J., Greenwald, S., Jensen-Vallin, J., Mast, M. (eds) Women in Mathematics. Association for Women in Mathematics Series, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66694-5_4

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