Elna Gistedt

She graduated from a girls' high school in Stockholm, singing studies in Stockholm, Berlin and St. Petersburg. She sang the main roles in operettas by I. Kálmán, F. Lehár, R. Stolz, J. Offenbach and J. Strauss. She came to Poland in 1922 for two-week guest appearances and stayed here for 22 years. She performed on operetta, theater and cabarets stages, as well as in films, e.g. in the Polish silent film "Rivals". She played the main role in the first Polish musical comedy "Yacht Milosci", which premiered on October 21, 1933 on the stage of the 8.30 Theater in Warsaw. After the outbreak of World War II, she remained in Poland. In occupied Warsaw, she ran the "U Elny Gistedt" cafe, located in the Branicki Palace at Nowy Swiat Street 18. She performed there, singing arias from various operettas. Jan Kreczmar and Lucyna Messal also gave concerts there. It also employed Jews, thus protecting them from deportations. The place was used by the Polish underground - meetings were attended by, among others, Kazimierz Moczarski and Swedish emissaries. She went to the Gestapo to plead for her stage colleagues. Disguised as a Jewess, she smuggled food and letters into the ghetto. In the fall of 1942, she rescued Polish children from the village of Sobieszów in the Zamosc region. She bought 34 sick children, brought them to Warsaw and gave them to foster families after being cured. After the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, she found herself in a transit camp in Pruszków. After her husband's death (due to exhaustion in a transit camp) in 1944, she returned to Sweden. She publicized German crimes in the local press. She came to Poland several times, including as a representative of Swedish aid organizations. In 1949, the communist authorities expelled her from Poland. The last time she visited Poland was in 1979. From 1950 she performed in Gustav Werner's Swedish operetta group, in 1952 she stayed in London and Paris, and sang songs in the Polish Club.