People

Helena Bohle-Szacka was born in Białystok, as the daughter of Maria Fanna née Tobolska, from the assimilated Jewish family from Łódź, and Aleksander Bohle, a textile engineer of German origin. During the German occupation, Aleksander Bohle hid his Jewish wife, collaborated with the Polish underground and actively participated in saving other Białystok Jews. Helena's half-sister, her mother's daughter from the first marriage, Irena Aronson-Bole was murdered by the Germans in Białystok. 

In 1944, Bohle-Szacka was arrested by Gestapo, and was imprisoned in concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Helmbrechts. She survived the "death march", reaching, with a group of prisoners, the Falkenau-Zwodau camp in Czech Republic, where she was liberated by the American army.

After the war, she returned to Łódź and in 1947 started studying in The Academy of the Fine Arts in Łódź, which she graduated with a master's degree in 1951. In the 1950s, she collaborated with "Dziennik Łódzki", and monthly fashion magazines "Moda", "Modne krawiectwo" and "Uroda", working in graphic journalism. In 1957 she became the artistic director of the "Telimena" Fashion House. In the 1960s she worked in Warsaw, in "Moda Polska" Fashion House, and after that she became the artistic director of "Leda" Fashion House. 

She married a doctor, Benedykt Winer, and after the divorce - Jerzy Urbanowicz. Her third husband was Wiktor Szacki. 

In 1968, after the anti-semitic campaign following the March events, she moved to West Berlin with her husband. In Germany, she worked as a fashion designer and a professor in Berlin's Lette-Schule, she also started her artistic career. Her works were shown at more than 40 exhibitions, in, among others, Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, Prague, Copenhagen, Vienna and London. 

She published two books - "Ślady, cienie" ("Traces, shadows") and "Od drzewa do drzewa" ("From one tree to another") with her own illustrations. In the 1980s, she participated in "Solidarność" aid campaign, organizing shipments of illegal printing materials, as well as food and medicine to Poland. She collaborated with "Pogląd" and "Archipelag", and was the artistic manager of the gallery at the Catholic Intellectual Club in Berlin. She also promoted Polish culture, for which she was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

She spent her last years as a witness of history, speaking out publicly about her wartime fate. 

In 2017, Śleńdzińscy Gallery in Białystok presented an extensive exhibition  devoted to her life and work, „Helena Bohle-Szacka. Mosty– Die Brücken”, curated by Marcin Różyc and  Katarzyna Siwerska.

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