The Extraordinary Life Story of Barbara Benz

She survived the war by helping partisans and serving as a courier, and later made Grudziądz her home. There she built a family home, raised three children and for many years was actively involved in supporting the veterans’ community. After also spending many years in Canada, where she helped her family, she remains a cheerful and warm-hearted person. The centenarian has received the Marshal of the Regional’s Unitas Durat Palatinatus Cuiaviano-Pomeraniensis Medal. On the occasion of her birthday, she was visited by Katarzyna Lubańska, Vice-President of the Regional Parliament.

She was born on 24 September 1926 in Kowalewo near Mława (Masovian Regional). Her parents, pre-war landowners Stanisława and Ksawery Mączewski, ran a farm after the war. Barbara is the youngest of their four children and their only daughter.

Her life was deeply marked by the experiences of the war. During the occupation, she lived in her family home in Kowalewo. As a young girl, she helped people involved in the underground resistance. Partisans hid on the family farm, and she took care of them. She also delivered leaflets and served as a courier, putting her own life at risk. It was work that required courage and great caution.

Like most Poles, she completed her primary education only after the war, attending primary school in Mława (Mazowieckie Region). She then moved to Olsztyn, where she began secondary school. It was there that she met her future husband, Zbigniew Benz. After completing school in 1950, the young couple married and moved to Gdańsk.

Two years later, their first daughter, Ewa, was born. Soon afterwards, the family moved to Grudziądz, which from then on became their home. Their other children, Urszula and Grzegorz, were born there. She did not take up her first job until her youngest child started the first grade of primary school. For the following years, she worked for the Grudziądz Meat Processing Plants, where she was employed in the sales department. She remained there until retiring at the age of 55.

Over the years, she became a grandmother to eight grandchildren and a great-grandmother to seven great-grandchildren.

After retiring, she remained socially active. She was actively involved in the Association of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy (ZBOWiD) in Grudziądz, where she served as secretary. For her activities, she was honoured on numerous occasions by the ZBOWiD Central Board. Her commitment to the veterans’ community was an important part of her life.

At the age of 60, she lost her husband, Zbyszek. She then spent many years in Canada, where she helped care for her grandchildren. After marrying Tadeusz, whom she met in Toronto, she returned to Poland and spent 20 happy years with him in Grudziądz.

Since 2018, she had lived with her daughter Urszula and her family in Toruń. For the past year and a half, she has been living in a care home for older people in Toruń, where she is happy to take part in therapeutic activities together with the other residents.

Her loved ones describe her as an exceptionally cheerful and open person, always ready to help others. “She never remained indifferent to other people’s problems. She could find a solution even when others could no longer see a way out of a situation,” her daughter Urszula says of her mother. The family jokes that they sometimes had to remind her that she had needs of her own, too.

Family has always been the greatest value in her life. It was for her family that she created a home in Grudziądz filled with warmth, love and mutual care. Today, her greatest joy comes from the generations that have followed – her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We encourage the families of residents of the region who will soon turn 100, as well as older residents, to contact us by phone at 56 62 18 344 or by e-mail at stulatkowie@kujawsko-pomorskie.pl.

Interesting facts about centenarians from Kuyavia and Pomerania:

• At the age of 102, Aurelia Liwińska flew by plane between Bydgoszcz and Warsaw
• Czesław Romankiewicz – Europe’s oldest golfer
• Wanda Hadrysiak – honorary citizen of Israel and a recipient of the title Righteous Among the Nations
• Halina Pniewska – a source of knowledge during the making of a film about Toruń’s “Szmalcówka”

• the regional self-government has been honouring centenarians from the region since 2018
• more than 585 people have received the Unitas Durat Medal to date

More information in the Peers of Independence section.

Press Office of the Marshal’s Office

30 September 2026