Hanna Helena Chrzanowska was born on 7 October 1902 in
Warsaw to
Ignacy Chrzanowski (5 February 1866 – 19 January 1940) and Wanda Szlenkier. She was part of an industrialist (maternal side) and a land-owning household (paternal side) that maintained a long-standing tradition of charitable works; her parents were well known for this in their native Poland. Her home's religious circumstances were also quite unique since half were Roman Catholic and the other half was
Protestant (descended from the
Jauch house). Chrzanowska was a relative of the
Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz (on her father's side) who was best known for writing the novel
Quo Vadis. Sometime in the 1920s she suffered an arm injury and was required to have an operation. It was also around this stage that she worked under
Magdalena Maria Epstein. Before she was admitted into nursing school she volunteered at a clinic for six months but was assigned bookkeeping duties that did not appeal to her for she wanted to be with people. Prior to the outbreak of World War II Hanna had moved to Warsaw and had been offered the position of vice principal of the School of Nursing in Warsaw. In 1940 during
World War II she lost her father who died during the
Sonderaktion Krakau at the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp and her lieutenant brother Bogden, an officer in the Polish Reserves, was murdered by the Soviets in
Katyn. In 1939 she returned to Krakow to work with the Polish Welfare Committee. As the war continued she organized nurses for home care in Warsaw and helped to both feed and resettle refugees. She secretly co-ordinated foster care for orphaned and other children, including Jewish children, separated from their parents with families and congregations of sisters who ran orphanages. At the conclusion of the war, she started working at the University School of Nursing and Midwifery as the head of the social nursing department. Chrzanowska also served as the director of the School of Psychiatric Nursing in
Kobierzyn until the
communists closed it. After sometime she moved into nursing the poor and the neglected in her own parish area. She became a member of the
Benedictine oblate at
Tyniec Abbey due to being drawn to
Benedict of Nursia; she also wanted to fuse her faith with her work as merciful and charitable work. From 1946 until 1947 Chrzanowska received a scholarship to the
United States of America, where she deepened her knowledge in the field of home nursing. In 1957 she organized a nurses' pilgrimage to
Jasna Góra. She published professional articles in nursing journals.
Cardinal Karol Wojtyła nominated her for a
Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award. In 1966 she was diagnosed with
cancer and despite several operations (one being on 13 December 1966) the disease spread.
Franciszek Macharski visited her on 12 April 1973 and gave her the
Anointing of the Sick while she later lost consciousness on 28 April. Chrzanowska succumbed to the disease on 29 April 1973 in her apartment at 4:00am and the cardinal
archbishop of Kraków Karol Józef Wojtyła – the future
Pope John Paul II – celebrated her funeral. On 6 April 2016 her remains were exhumed for examination and were reburied on 7 April at a celebration that Cardinal Macharski presided over. ==Honors==