A Polish political prisoner in Ravensbrück, condemned to death by the Nazis for her work with a local resistance group. 

Kierska was married to major of the Polish Army, Aleksander Kierski. The couple had daughter Wanda Samp. With the Nazi Germans and and the Soviets attacking Poland in September 1939 and her husband taken prisoner of war by the Soviets, Zenona became involved with the resistance in her hometown. The Nazi Germans found out about this. They arrested Kierska and deported her to their Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Zenona was executed in September 1942, alongside a number of fellow female prisoners.

While the prisoners were being held in a bunker during their final day, awaiting execution, fellow prisoner Janina Borkowska managed to scribble a note:

At three o'clock we were given a white liquid in a glass to drink -- we all refused. We are calm, we talk about our families, now we will pray... Nothing so far - we are still waiting... So it will happen. We will be shot.

We have just been read the death sentence. We are calm…

When the roll call siren sounds, we will know that we are about to leave... Pray for us... Goodbye... Now we will pray.

All nine prisoners condemned to death that day signed the note, a final testament to their lives... and deaths.

Janina Borkowska, Jadwiga Boska, Henryka Dembowska, Małgorzata Dembowska, Zenona Kierska, Stefania Jachimowicz, Wanda Polakowska and Anna Ryglewicz

Kierska's husband did not survive World War II, either. He was killed by the Soviets in Kharkov in spring 1940 in what is collectively known as the Katyn Massacre. Kierska, however, never knew, because the crime had not been partly discovered until 1943, a year after her death.

The ashes and remains of these women and other Ravensbrück prisoners were found at the site by specialists form the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland. The ceremony of the re-internment for the altogether 45 prisoners, most of them Polish, was held at the Fürstenberg/Havel Cemetery (that's where Ravensbrück camp) on 6 September 2022.

REFERENCE

On the discovery of the urns and the commemoration ceremony in 2022, see:

https://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/9818,Funeral-ceremonies-of-the-Polish-female-prisoners-from-KL-Ravensbrck-FrstenbergH.html

For a folder on Kierska and her WWII clandestine activity, see:

https://kpbc.umk.pl/Content/183620/Kierska_Zenobia_2665_WSK.pdf

Written by Lydia and Ivonna Nowicka, 2024