In 1913, Getzowa was appointed first assistant at the Institute and with the beginning of World War I in 1914, she stood in for the director who had been called to military duty. After two years of service, as a woman and a foreigner she was dismissed in October 1915. Without any income, her previous professor Ernst Hedinger offered her a post at the University of Basel in 1916. The position ended after nine months and she became the prosector at the Kantonsspital St. Gallen on a recommendation from Wegelin. Over the next two years, she worked in the pathology clinic where she performed abdominal operations. When the war ended, Getzowa was cut off from friends and family in her former homeland. The Polish–Soviet War (1919–1921) devastated what was left of her home and annexed the land as part of the Second Polish Republic. She returned to Bern, and experienced both emotional and financial difficulties, which did not dissipate until 1921 when the American Putman-Jacoby Foundation arranged for her to work as a freelance researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Given an opportunity to come back to Bern, she returned to work at the Institute in 1924. The following year was awarded special retroactive remuneration for teaching experimental pathology at the university.