Maria Grzegorzewska

Maria Grzegorzewska (1887 to 1967) was a Polish educator who brought the special education movement to Poland. Born in Wołucza in the Russian Empire, she attended clandestine Polish schools, studied at the Jagiellonian University and at the International Paedological Faculty in Brussels under Józefa Joteyko, and earned her doctorate at the Sorbonne in 1916 with a thesis on children's aesthetic feelings. After a visit to the Bicêtre Hospital she resolved to work for equal access to education for people with disabilities. Back in Poland in 1919 she joined the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education to build special schools and teacher training, designed a curriculum that was put into practice in 1922 at the newly founded State Institute of Special Education, and directed that institute from its founding until her death. During the Second World War she worked as a nurse, took part in the resistance and helped Jews through Żegota. Between 1957 and 1960 she was a full professor at the University of Warsaw.