Wilhelm Szenwic was born on December 1, 1892, in the family of Jakub Lejba and Sura Ryfka nee Łabędź. Similarly to his older brother, he attended the middle school in Płock, which he graduated in 1910. He studied medicine at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, where in 1917 he received his doctorate in medicine. In the years 1917-1918 he worked in obstetrics and gynecology clinics. After Poland regained independence, he returned to the country. On November 26, 1918, he volunteered for the Polish Army. He was assigned to the 8th Legions Infantry Regiment, where he served as a battalion doctor and commander of a medical company. He took part in the fighting in Ukraine in 1920. On June 28, 1920, he was wounded in the Battle of Korets. He received the Cross of Valor for caring for the wounded in combat conditions. In 1922, with the rank of reserve captain, he returned to civilian life and the medical profession. He worked in various Warsaw hospitals in obstetrics and gynecology wards. In 1938, he took the position of head of the obstetrics and gynecology ward at the Czyste Hospital.
Wilhelm Szenwic’s wife was Eugenia née Ettinger, born on August 12, 1907 in Warsaw, the daughter of Salomon and Klara Chaja née Symchowicz, a lawyer. Wilhelm and Eugenia had one daughter, Iwona Klara, who was born on September 15, 1929 in Warsaw.
During the German occupation, he hid in Warsaw under the name Sowiński (which he kept after the end of the war). He participated in the Warsaw Uprising as a battalion doctor of the 3rd Armored Battalion of the Home Army “Golski”.
Eugenia Szenwic née Ettinger and her daughter Iwona found shelter with the Samaritan Sisters in Pruszków during World War II. Iwona was then transferred to other places, including the Ursuline boarding school and the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Szymanów. Wilhelm Szenwic took Iwona from the latter facility in August 1944. Wilhelm Szenwic and his daughter returned to the convent in Pruszków and stayed there until the Germans were driven out.
After the war, Wilhelm Szenwic was appointed associate professor and appointed head of the Department of Obstetrics and Women’s Diseases of the newly established University, and then the Medical Academy in Łódź. He was also a provincial specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, he also dealt with issues of social health care. He cooperated with the Polyclinic of Occupational Diseases. In 1951, he moved to the Medical Academy in Warsaw, where he organized the Second Clinic of Obstetrics and Women’s Diseases. He was the chairman and honorary member of the Łódź Society of Gynecologists, the chairman and member of the Warsaw Gynecological Society and the author of many articles and studies in the field of obstetrics and gynecology, including monograph “Infertility and sexual impotence in women” (1934).
He died on March 17, 1955. He is buried at the Powązki Cemetery.
Iwona Klara Szenwic was a philologist in the field of Slavic, English and Roman studies and a professor at York University in Toronto. She belonged to many societies and scientific organizations, e.g. Polish Scientific Society Abroad and the Polish Scientific Institute in America. She died on December 8, 1989.
