Sofia Sigizmundovna Dzerzhinskaya (born Muszkat; Polish: Zofia Dzierżyńska—Muszkat; Russian: Софья Сигизмундовна Дзержинская—Мушкат; 4 December 1882 - 27 February 1968) was a leading Polish Social Democrat and later Communist politician.[1] [2] During World War II, she was director of the Polish language Tadeusz Kościuszko radio station, broadcasting the communist message into occupied Poland.[3]
From September 1918 through February 1919, Sofia was a member of the Soviet diplomatic mission in Bern. From 1920, she lived in the Soviet Union, in Moscow where she worked as a teacher. In 1922, Sofia worked in the School of Rosa Luxemburg in Moscow, later, 1923–24 at the Communist University of the National Minorities of the West. After that, she worked in the Polish Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. From 1939 to 1943, Sofia worked at the Executive Committee of Comintern. In 1969, her memoirs "Lata wielkich bojów: wspomnienia" were published in Poland by Książka i Wiedza publishing house. She died in Moscow in 1968 and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.
She was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a Jewish family.[4] She married Felix Dzerzhinsky on 10 November 1910 in Kraków at the St. Nicholas Church. On 23 June 1911, in Pawiak prison, she gave birth to their only son and child Janek (Jan).