Bronisława Wieniawa-Długoszowska
Bronisława Wieniawa-Długoszowska (9 June 1886 – 26 August 1953) was a Polish wartime nurse of Russian Jewish origin. Her father Salomon (Simeon) Kliatchkin (Russian: Зельман Клячкин; 1858–1916) was the owner of the first credit bureau (credit reference agency) in the Russian Empire. Her mother was Helena Kliatchkin (née Bajenov; 1886–1953). She had nine siblings; one died in childhood, three in Joseph Stalin's purges, one survived in Russia and four survived in exile in France. The family's suffering under Stalin is recorded in a film shown on Russian television in 2008, История семьи как эпоха (The history of a family which was a witness to its epoch). In 1903 she graduated from a Gymnasium in Łódź. She studied medicine in Paris before 1914. At this time she was married to her first husband, , a lawyer. Berenson was the defender in the Tsarist courts of Felix Dzerzhinsky, who was to be the founder of the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police agency. At the outbreak of the First World War she volunteered to work as a nurse at the Hotel Continental in Paris, now the Westin Paris - Vendôme. She nursed Pierre Laurent (1892–1935), a young French officer, the son of Charles Laurent, a French senior civil servant. Pierre was sent to join the military mission of General Lavergne in Saint Petersburg, then called Petrograd. Lavergne had succeeded General Henri Niessel as head of the French military mission. There Pierre was responsible for obtaining information about the Russian army. Bronisława, back in Petrograd, helped him. After Vladimir Lenin arrived in his sealed train their priority was to prevent him leading Russia into an armistice with Germany. They were able to obtain telegrams to Lenin appearing to show that he was supported by German funds. They presented this information to the Provisional government headed by Prince Georgy Lvov on 24 June, but no action was taken at that meeting. However, Justice Minister Pereverzev investigated further and was able to obtain a fuller set of 66 telegrams (Lyandres). These proved the existence of an import business from Sweden run by the Bolsheviks, but it was the evidence of contact with known German agents which was damming. The July Days (3 – 7 July) were the Bolshevik's second attempt at a coup. On 4 July Pereverzev shared the information gained from the telegrams with General Peter Polovtsov, commander of the Petrograd garrison, some newspaper editors and other ministers. According to Sean McMeekin, revulsion among the soldiers at the knowledge that Lenin was in contact with the enemy brought them on the side of the provisional government and ended the coup attempt. The next day Pereverzev's men raided the Kschessinskaya mansion where the Bolsheviks were based. Many Bolsheviks were arrested and Lenin fled to Finland. According to McMeekin, recently opened Russian archives contain evidence, from the investigation triggered by the telegrams, that the import business was a front for laundering money being sent by the German government to the Bolsheviks. We can suppose, then, that