Bertha Barwikowski Collection

Details

Who's responsible?: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (Repository)
How much has been digitized?: This collection has been digitized in its entirety.
What's in the full collection?: 17 November 2000 oral history transcript; portrait photograph of Bertha in her WAC uniform, circa 1944.
Full biography: Bertha Barwikowski (1923-2004) of Stamford, Connecticut, served as a teletype operator in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) from 1944 to 1945. Bertha Bielen Barwikowski was born in Stamford, Connecticut, on 3 September 1923 to first- and second-generation Polish immigrants. After graduating from high school in 1941, she worked for the Pitney Bowes Postage Meter Company. Barwikowski enlisted in the Women's Army Corps in July 1944 and attended basic training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, before serving as a teletype operator with the North Atlantic Division Air Transport Command at Grenier Field near Manchester, New Hampshire. Barwikowski married her first husband in January 1945 and was discharged from the army in May 1945 when she became pregnant. She and her husband moved to Orlando, Florida, but were divorced five years later. When her second marriage ended, Bertha Bielen Barwikowski found work as a waitress and then with the United States Postal Service. She remained with the postal service for twenty-four years. Barwikowski passed away on 31 January 2004.
Topics: Women's History
Military
Branch of service: Army -- WAC
Army -- AAF
Conflict: World War II era (1940-1946)
Subject headings: World War, 1939-1945
United States. Army--Women
Contributing Institution: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries

: Oral history interview with Bertha Sligh B. Barwikowski; Barwikowski primarily discusses her experiences in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) and her personal life following the war. Barwikowski discusses her ethnic heritage and her Polish ancestors. She then describes her experience in the WAC, including basic training at Fort Oglethorpe; encounters with Italian prisoners of war and Polish soldiers; her communications work with the North Atlantic Division Air Transport Command at Grenier Field in New Hampshire; negative experiences with the Red Cross; tragedies at the field; and V-E Day. Barwikowski also discusses the negative reputation of the WACs and gender and racial discrimination in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Manchester, New Hampshire. " Topics related to Barwikowski's personal life include her marriages; having to leave the service when she became pregnant; wishing she could stay in; the difficult adjustment to civilian life; one of her son's experiences during the Vietnam War; and her career with the postal service.

: Portrait of Bertha Barwikowski; Portrait of WAC Bertha Barwikowski, circa 1944.

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Women Veterans Historical Project

Bertha Barwikowski Collection

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