Barbara Ubryk

• Barbara Ubryk

• Imprisonment for more than two decades in Karmelitan Bose Sisters’monastery in Krakow, Poland.

She was Anna Ubryk, born in a religious family in Poland on 14th July, 1817. With the sudden demise of her parents fate dragged her to joining a monastery in Warsaw at the age of 21 in 1938.

 Being a part of a religious family she willingly decided to dedicate her life to God. The preparation time was two years and unfortunately she showed signs of mental illness during the period.

Had it been the time of today, she would have got utmost care of the Psychiatrist. But in those days, in the 1800’s, mental illness was considered a shameful affair. As a result Anna could not complete her Nowicjat (preparation time) with the sisters.

Not losing hope, Anna joined the Karmelitan Bose Sisters’ Monastery in Krakow with a new na

me Barbara and religiously completed her first year of preparation under the strict rules of the closed monastery. Life was good at the beginning as her ideology was total dedication to the nun’s life. But after a few months mental unstableness started hovering over her. Historians later agreed that it was Nymphomania, an uncontrollable or excessive sexual desire. 

With laughing out loud for no reason, dancing, singing and running completely naked made the surroundings completely disappointing. At times she would turn aggressive and throw tiling roofs at her fellow sisters. As no simple treatment was available during those days, the illness was simply attributed to the cause of working of dark spirits.

As a degraded affair in religious circles, the treatment was to keep the patients in isolation to get the victim rid off dark spirits. Something similar happened with Barbara. The treatment was too treacherous as possessions of spirits were thought to be powerful. The treatment included bloodletting and sucking of bad blood and at times being burnt in the flames to drive away the spirits.

But those treatments had no effect on Barbara. She started staying aloof and not responding to anyone’s calls. One day she was caught dancing naked when her door was opened forcefully. The nuns of Karmelite convent were startled and finally decided that Barbara must be imprisoned in a small cell deep down in the monastery to preserve the monastery’s good name.

As per the rules of that famous monastery no one would leave the grounds once entered the monastery. There was no other choice except to push Barbara into the tiniest cell of the building. Due to her abnormal behaviour the two small windows were walled shut. Even the barest minimum service of providing her food was limited to a small hole in the wall. 

Tiniest to tiniest furniture was removed from the tiny cell as Barbara aimed them at the doctors who came to help her.

As of everyone, they thought Barbara would recover in a few days time. No one had expected Barbara to continue in the cell for more than 21 years. With no place for even a small bed, she would lie naked on the ground all the while in that dark sunken room. The torture or punishment, as you would say, had total adverse effect on the poor nun. She would attack anyone she confronted and finally it resulted in no one attending her.

 This is the story of complete isolation of a devoted blooming nun who desperately wished to be a very part of the famous monastery.

Man being a social animal, anyone in the shoes of Barbara would have really gone insane sooner or later.

Very few knew about this except the nuns and doctors who came for her treatment and wanted to keep mum for the monastery’s cause. How long would have Barbara lived the miserable life, no one had known. But one fine day,In July 1869, an investigating judge in the city of Krakow, at that time part of the Austrian province of Galicia, made a shocking discovery that would lead to an international scandal.

 Having received an anonymous letter informing him that a catholic nun was being held against her will in the city’s Carmelite Convent, the judge demanded the right to search within its walls.The then bishop would not give the permission, as it was a famous monastery. Brushing aside the protests of the Mother Superior, Confessor and other nuns, the judge with the local Bishop Antony Galedzki along with several other officers forced his way into the convent and rushed down.The sisters protested against the allegation, but finally succumbed to pressure. 

Opening the door, the investigators recoiled in horror. A figure half-beast, half-human lay before them naked, shivering and covered with mud and excrement. Cowering at the sight of her liberators, the “creature” in the terms of the press begged them for mercy. Shocked and angered by their discovery, the officers led away the nun, by now identified as Barbara Ubryk.She was needed to be taken to the psychiatrist .The bishop had to interfere as there were lot of protests from the sisters’ side.

The sisters were reprimanded of the heinous crime against Barbara. When news of the scandal reached the town’s citizens, mobs gathered outside the convent and were only prevented from attacking the building by the presence of armed soldiers. It was later alleged that Ubryk had been held captive in her miserable cell for twenty one years.

This seems obscene with a modern prospective but to the protectors of the religion, legally the nuns had only obliged their duty upholding the strict rules of the monastery which they had sworn under oath.