Janina Oyrzanowska-Poplewska

Janina Oyrzanowska-Poplewska (2 May 1918 –16 July 2001) was a Polish academic and veterinarian. A professor at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, she specialized in epizootiology but her main area of research concerned viral diseases of canines, which led to the development of the first vaccine for canine distemper in Poland.

During World War II, she was involved with Polish resistance, and her family helped a number of refugees. In 1981, she was honored as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for her efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.

Early life
Janina Róża Oyrzanowska was born on 2 May 1918 in Warsaw, during the German Regency Kingdom of Poland to Maria Elżbieta (née Czarnecka) and Kazimierz Oyrzanowski. Her Ojrzanowski family were Polish nobles, bore the Junosza coat of arms, and owned the Golebie estate near Pułtusk. She was the great granddaughter of Robert Fryderyk Stichel, the first person to earn a master's degree in Poland in veterinary science. Oyrzanowska completed her high school education in 1936 and began taking courses at the faculty of veterinary medicine at the University of Warsaw. Her studies were interrupted by the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Oyrzanowska married the veterinarian Mieczysław Poplewski (1916–1940), who would join the Polish Land Forces at the outset of World War II. Poplewski was a second lieutenant of the 7th Polish Cavalry Regiment and was executed by the NKVD in 1940 near Kharkiv when the Soviet forces invaded Poland and carried out the Katyn massacres.

During the war, Oyrzanowska lived with her mother, younger sister Maria, and older brother Kazimierz in an apartment in Warsaw. They also had other apartments in the city and a small summer hut on a piece of land they rented for truck farming in the Czerniaków neighborhood. Her family became involved with the Polish resistance from October 1939, and one of their family apartments hosted an underground printing press and document forgery studio. They helped Jews during the war, including their neighbors, the Linfeld and Sterling families; their gardener, Jerzy Glinicki; and others, including Wiktoria Szczawińska and Franciszka Tusk Scheinwechsler (during the war known as Natalia Obrębka). Maria, who had just completed her secondary education, and Oyrzanowska, who was attending university, grew flowers and vegetables to support the family. They moved the Jews they were helping, hiding them in their various homes, ensuring that each of them survived the war. Her family also offered hiding places to other refugees, including escaped Soviet prisoners of war. For their efforts, her sister Maria was arrested by the Germans in 1942 and from March to September that year was incarcerated in the Pawiak Prison. Eventually, the family escaped Warsaw in the latter stages of the Warsaw Uprising.

Career
Following the end of the war, Oyrzanowska studied at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin before returning to the reopened Warsaw University, where she received her degree as a doctor of veterinary studies in 1950. She was working in a professional capacity from 1947. In 1960 she received a PhD degree, and in 1967, she did her habilitation. In 1978 she received the title of associate professor (profesor nadzwyczajny) at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences.

At the beginning of her career, Oyrzanowska focused on viral diseases of dogs and foxes, such as canine distemper and Rubarth's disease, which had been discussed in her PhD thesis Rozpoznanie serologiczne nosówki i epizootycznego zapalenia wątroby u psów i lisów (Serological Diagnosis of Distemper and Epizootic Hepatitis in Dogs and Foxes, 1960). Her work resulted in the development and production of the first Polish vaccine for canine distemper. She also conducted research to determine the necessary dosage for preventive vaccination against rabies. Other notable research by her concerned the topics of the pseudorabies, as well as of the bovine alphaherpesvirus 1.

Oyrzanowska was a co-author of a textbook Choroby mięsożernych zwierząt futerkowych (Diseases of carnivorous fur animals). She was a member of the Polish Microbiologist Society and Polish Society of the Veterinary Sciences and in the latter, she was a director of its Warsaw and epizootiology sections.

In 1980, Oyrzanowska, along with other academics joined in the founding of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union of Science, Technology and Education Workers (Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy Pracowników Nauki, Techniki i Oświaty, NSZZ PNTiO). At their first meeting, they agreed to join their trade union with Solidarity in an effort to push forward the democratization process.

Throughout her career, Oyrzanowska received several awards, including the Golden Cross of Merit, Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and the Order of the Commission of National Education. Based on the account of Franciszka Tusk Scheinwechsler, on 6 June 1981, Oyrzanowska and her sister, Maria, were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.

Death and legacy
Oyrzanowska died on 16 July 2001 in Warsaw and was buried in the Powązki Cemetery.