During the Nazi occupation of Poland she joined the Polish resistance movement in World War II and was a military nurse during the Warsaw Uprising.
Czesław Miłosz writes of knowing her during this time and has translated a volume of her work.
In 1974 she published Building the Barricade, a volume which describes the suffering she witnessed and experienced during that time.
[3] Some of Swir's poems are translated into Nepali by Suman Pokhrel and are collected in an anthology tilled Manpareka Kehi Kavita.
[8][9] Nine of Swir's poems were posthumously published by family, earlier translated in Dutch by Gerard Rasch, in his work Memento in 2005.