Dworzecka was educated in physics in Poland, also traveling to India to study in 1967, but being recalled to Poland after the outbreak of the Six-Day War. She earned a master's degree in physics in 1964 and completed her Ph.D. in 1969, both at the University of Warsaw, where she became a junior faculty member in 1964. Meanwhile, anti-semitic violence had again flared up in Poland, triggered by the 1968 Polish political crisis, and she was asked to leave Poland because of her Jewish identity. The Bialowarczuks offered to shelter Dworzecka and her adopted parents, but instead she chose to emigrate to the US, leaving Alicja Dworzecka and Arkadiusz Dworzecki in Poland. To do so, she traveled to Israel as a tourist, stopping in Vienna on her return trip, where she obtained a refugee visa to the US.