Natalia Aszkenazy

Natalia Aszkenazy, also seen as Natacha Eschkenazi and later Natalia Drohojowska, was a Polish diplomat and lecturer during World War II, and a magazine writer in the 1950s. Having traveled to the United States just prior to Poland's invasion in 1939, she was unable to return home. Beginning her career as a Red Cross volunteer, Aszkenazy was appointed as the first woman diplomat of Poland and sent to organize the Polish embassy in the USSR in 1941. Wartime events had left the 1.5 million Poles livinging in Russia in poor condition. When Russia severed diplomatic ties with Poland, she returned to the United States and lectured there until the end of the war. After the war ended, she took right of asylum from Mexico and became a writer and philanthropist.