She was promoted to brigadier general of the Polish Land Forces (after Maria Wittek the second woman to hold this rank) by President Lech Kaczyński on 3 May 2006.

Zawacka was born in Toruń (German: Thorn), part of the Prussian Partition of Poland, and graduated from Poznań University in mathematics.

In the late 1930s she taught at several secondary schools, simultaneously working as an instructor for Przysposobienie Wojskowe Kobiet (Women's Military Training).

In October 1939 she joined the Silesian branch of the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej) under the nom de guerre "Zelma", which she later changed to "Zo".

She was a tenured professor at the Institute of Pedagogy at Mikołaj Kopernik University in Toruń, where she established the department of andragogy.