Warsaw Uprising Medic Barbara Tokarska Dies at Age 102 in Poland

Wartime mobilization and schooling

Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski announced the death of Barbara Tokarska, known by her wartime codename Jola, on September 11, 2026. Tokarska died several weeks after celebrating her 102nd birthday on July 31, 2026. Born in 1924 in Boryslaw, then located in Poland's Lwow Voivodeship, her family lived on Kaweczynska Street in Warsaw prior to the war. On September 1, 1939, she was attending the third grade at the Maria Curie-Sklodowska all-girls gymnasium when World War II began. During the German occupation, she completed underground secondary coursework, passed her matura examination in 1942, and began studying at the underground Warsaw School of Economics while joining the anti-Nazi conspiracy.

Medical service in Mokotow

When the Warsaw Uprising began on August 1, 1944, the 20-year-old Tokarska joined the Military Women's Service sanitary section on Czerniakowska Street. Under direct fire during the first days of August, she treated wounded insurgents and arranged horse-drawn carriage transport to local clinics. After navigating across open terrain to Upper Mokotow, she transferred to Company O-2 within the Home Army's Baszta Regiment. She operated medical aid stations on Czeczota Street and Szustra Street, as well as the Alkazar Redoubt. In her early days of service, Tokarska assisted a physician in treating a young insurgent suffering from extensive abdominal trauma.

All of a sudden there was an alarm, Tiger tanks were approaching. Everyone jumped up and ran to the shelter, and that was when I was hit.

Battle injury and field hospital care

The shrapnel injury occurred on August 15, 1944, during a German tank attack while Tokarska was at a meal inside a bastion at Aleja Niepodleglosci 117/119. Following the blast, comrades carried her to the Szustra Street aid station, where she spent several days before transfer to the Sisters of St. Elizabeth Hospital. Doctors were unable to remove all metal fragments, leaving permanent shrapnel in her body. Upon completing three days of hospital treatment, she returned to duty at the field hospital on Misyjna Street. She remained with immobilized patients during aerial bombings and artillery strikes, attending to casualties that included Bronislaw Wojciechowski and Andrzej Kasznica, who later became Dominican Father Krzysztof.

I will miss such meetings and conversations very much. Just as we will all miss you, Ms. Barbara. Rest in peace, Hero.

Postwar career and state honours

After the Warsaw Uprising ended in capitulation, Tokarska evacuated the city alongside civilians and passed through the Dulag 121 transit camp in Ursus. She subsequently returned to Warsaw to resume her academic studies, obtaining a master's degree in economics from the Poznan Academy of Commerce and completing a doctorate in economic sciences. Tokarska went on to work at the Polish Chamber of Foreign Trade, the Central Statistical Office, the Institute of Industrial Design, and the state trading firm Polimex-Cekop. She later resided in Zalesie Gorne with her husband, raising two children. In November 2025, she was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for services to Polish independence.