Małgorzata Krystyna Braunek was born on January 30, 1947, in Szamotuły. Her father, Władysław Braunek (1902-1963) was an officer in the Polish Army. In August 1939, bearing the rank of rittmeister, he became a quartermaster, the second deputy commander of the 15th Regiment of Poznań Ulhans. He fought in the Polish campaign of 1939. After it ended, he was taken prisoner. He was put in oflags (including XI B Braunschweig and II C Woldenberg). Between 1940s and 1950s, he was imprisoned for several political reasons.
Acting career
In 1966, Małgorzata Braunek graduated from the XVIII Jan Zamoyski High School in Warsaw, and then she studied at the Higher National Theatre School in Warsaw until 1969. She never graduated from these studies though.
Between 1972-1975, she was employed at the National Theatre in Warsaw. In her acting career she played in more than 20 films, more than a dozen TV series and in several television plays.
Małgorzata Braunek, 1971. Photo from passport files, archives of the Institute of National Remembrance
Małgorzata Braunek, 1973. Photo from passport files, archives of the Institute of National Remembrance
She debuted in front of a camera in a school short Passersby (1966) and a feature film Life of Mateusz (1967). She gained popularity among the audiences and the interest of critics by playing one of the leading roles in the film Hunting Flies (1969) by Andrzej Wajda.
An important step in her career was the performance in a new and original feature film debut of director Andrzej Żuławski, titled The Third Part of the Night (1971). She also played in the next film by the same director The Devil (1972), which had its premiere years later, in 1988. The peak of her acting career came with the roles in the film The Deluge and the TV series The Doll.
In the 1980s, Małgorzata Braunek stepped away from acting. She appeared as background characters in some films in the second half of the 1990s, to then come back to her artistic activity in 2004. She played, among others, the role of Marianna in the film The Tulips. For that role, she received the 2004 best supporting actress award at the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdynia and the 2006 Polish Film Award (The Eagle) in the category Best Supporting Actress in 2005. In 2009, she played in the TV series The House on the Lake, and in the following years (until 2014) she played in the next series which were the continuation of the former.
She passed away on June 23, 2014, at the age of 67.
Małgorzata Braunek, 1977. Photo from passport files, archives of the Institute of National Remembrance
Małgorzata Braunek, 1970s. Photo from the files of Operation Star, archives of the Institute of National Remembrance
Democratic opposition and social activism
In January 1977, the actress signed the open letter To the representatives of the world of science and culture, the Members of the Parliament of the Polish People’s Republic, in which she and other signatories called for the creation of a parliamentary committee investigating the repressions by the communist Citizens’ Militia of the democratic protesters in Radom and Ursus in June 1976. Because of that, since January 1977 to January 1978 she was investigated by the 3rd Division of the Citizens’ Militia in Warsaw under Operation Star.
In 2014, the actress was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for “outstanding achievements in artistic and social work and the contributions to democratic changes in Poland.”
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The photographs of Małgorzata Braunek presented in this article come from the passport files and the operational files under Operation Star connected with the actress, which are currently stored in the archives of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw.
