Maria Rutkiewicz was born in Brześć nad Bugiem (now Brest, Belarus) to Teresa and Mieczysław Kamieniecki in a well-educated, liberal family.
Joseph Stalin's Great Purge had eliminated a number of the Polish Communist Party's leaders and in 1939, Hitler invaded the country.
The term Polish intelligentsia covers primarily Polish priests, teachers, lecturers, doctors, dentists, veterinary surgeons, officers, executives, businessmen, landowners, writers, journalists, plus all persons who have received a higher or secondary education.With her husband, then a soldier, taken prisoner of war, Rutkiewicz fled to Bialystok in Russian-occupied Poland.
After Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, she fled to Moscow and was recruited into the initiative group of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) and trained as a radio operator.
She was beaten, arrested and taken to Pawiak prison, but then brought back to Gestapo headquarters for interrogation, which included more beatings.
Her mother was shot by Nazis; one brother was killed in the army in 1939 and the other fought in the French resistance, was captured and murdered at Auschwitz.
[1] The other women were Mary Lindell, a British woman; Sigrid Helliesen Lund, a Norwegian; and Hiltgunt Zassenhaus, a German.