In 1939, as bombs fell on Warsaw and the city braced itself against the German invasion, an 18-year-old woman named Zofia Słowikowska walked through the chaos and into the Polish Military Hospital of the Order of Malta on Senatorska Street. She wasn’t looking for safety — she was there to help.
Eighty-five years later, that same woman – now Mrs. Zofia Bogdan, 104 years old – received the Gold Medal pro Merito Melitensi, the Order of Malta’s highest distinction for acts of bravery and service in life-threatening circumstances. In a solemn ceremony led by Count Jacek Tarnowski, President of the Polish Association of the Order, Mrs. Bogdan became the first person in Poland to receive this exceptional honour.
Her story is one of resilience, quiet heroism, and devotion to the suffering. During the Second World War, she served as a nurse in the Order’s hospital, cared for victims of Nazi terror, and took part in resistance efforts under the pseudonym “Zojda.” Today, she stands as the last living nurse from that historic hospital — and one of the last living witnesses of wartime Warsaw.
At that time, she not only tended to the wounded during the brutal Warsaw Uprising but also trained fellow nurses and took part in underground resistance operations, including the historic effort to reclaim the PASTA building (the Polish Telephone Company).
After the fall of the Uprising, she and the hospital staff were evacuated to a hospital camp on the grounds of a factory on the outskirts of Warsaw, where the Germans established a branch of the Durchgangslager 121 camp. She escaped deportation thanks to the intervention of her fiancé’s family. Following the war, Mrs. Bogdan remained connected to her fellow hospital workers, doctors and nurses, recalling its unique atmosphere of brotherhood and bravery, and preserving the memory of the Order of Malta’s mission of mercy in wartime Warsaw.
As President Tarnowski placed the gold medal in her hands, it was not only a recognition of past heroism but a profound act of remembrance — a tribute to a woman who risked everything to save others, and who, even a century later, continues to inspire.
