Sue Ryder Museum opens in Warsaw
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
20.10.2016 07:47
A museum dedicated to the life and work of Sue Ryder, a British philanthropist who worked for Poland and Poles, has opened in Warsaw.
Sue Ryder. Photo: fundacjasueryder.pl
Its collection includes Sue Ryder’s personal archive, numerous documents, photographs, letters and memorabilia relating to her war-time activities and charity work.
Born in 1923, Sue Ryder joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry at the age of 16 and was soon assigned to the Polish section of the Special Operations Executive. She worked closely with the Cichociemni (Dark and Silent), an elite unit of Polish soldiers who were trained in Britain before being parachuted to Poland to join anti-Nazi resistance in their homeland.
After the war, Sue Ryder volunteered to do relief work. In 1953 she established the Sue Ryder Foundation, which provided help for former prisoners of German concentration camps, the elderly and disabled and the children in India and Africa.
It operates more than 100 homes worldwide, including 30 in Poland, and has several hundred charity shops
Ryder was made a life peer in 1979, being created Lady Ryder of Warsaw. She was an honorary citizen of the Polish capital and treated Poland as her second homeland. She died in 2000, aged 77. (mk/rg)