Hanka Ordonówna in Lebanon
20.01.2025
The great actress and singer spent the last years of her life in Beirut and was laid to rest in the Polish war cemetery there.
Hanka Ordonówna (1902-1950), real name Maria Anna Tyszkiewicz, Polish stage star of the interwar period, singer, actress, dancer, author of poems and lyrics, was also associated with the cabaret scene and the most famous Polish theatres, as well as the circus revue.
Born in Warsaw, she was arrested during World War II and deported to a labour camp in Uzbekistan, and after being released from exile she lived in Palestine, India and Syria. She spent the last years of her life in Beirut.
Heroically, she organized help for several hundred Polish orphans during World War II evacuating them from the Soviet Union, following the footsteps of Anders' Army, including to Lebanon. In 1948, under the pseudonym Weronika Hort, she published the book ‘Exiled children’, describing the fate of young refugees.
She was buried in the Polish war cemetery in Beirut and in 1990, her ashes were moved to Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery.
