ABSTRACT
In his book On the Shoulders of Giants , Robert Merton (1965/1985) declared that although a received picture of progress in science consists of that idea (attributed to Isaac Newton), in (historical) reality, it is the appointed giants who stand on a pyramid of midgets. In this chapter, the author suggests yet another possibility: that of a midget (myself), who believes to be standing alone, not on the top, but at least in a place with a view, and suddenly discovers that she was, in fact, all the time standing on somebody's shoulders. The biography of Maria Ossowska has been presented in several variations (even the alleged day of her birth varies), most likely due to Ossowska's various clashes with authorities that might have led to falsification or loss of documents. During World War II, the Ossowscy organized underground education in Warsaw and helped to hide people in danger of persecution.
