Holocaust Hero Irina Sendler (1910-2008)
Polish Woman Who Saved 2500 Children from the Nazis Passes at 98
May 12, 2008
Irena Sendler (1910-2008) died at age 98 on Monday, May 12, 2008 in Warsaw. She was a Catholic Social Worker who rescued more than 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. By 1942 the Germans had herded 500,000 Jews into an enclosed area of about one square kilometer. Here the Jewish people awaited transportation to the concentration camps.
Courageous Rescue Work in Warsaw Ghetto
Sendler's father ran a hospital at the Warsaw suburb of Otwock, where he defied anti-Semites by treating sick Jews during outbreaks of typhoid fever. He died of the disease when his daughter was 9. His example was of profound importance to Irena.
When the war broke out, Sendler was a 29-year-old nurse in the Warsaw Welfare Department. After 280,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka in 1942, the Council for Aid of Jews (Zegota) was created. The group tried to save the most endangered people and Sendler became one of its main activists.They forged documents and organised escape plans. Children were sedated and carried out of the ghetto in bags and coffins, others crawled through the network of sewers to the outside world. Once in safety, they were hidden with friendly families, in Catholic monasteries and orphanages.
Irina Sendler was Imprisoned and Tortured by the Gestapo
In 1943 Irena Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo, severely tortured and sentenced to death. Her arms and legs were broken, but she did not give away the names of those she had rescued.
The Underground organisation Zegota saved her by bribing the German guards. Officially, she was listed as executed. Even in hiding, she continued her work for the Jewish children. Like Oskar Schindler, Irena Sendler kept lists of the names of "her" children in order to re-connect them with family members and save their identity. These lists were hidden in a jar under an apple tree.
After the war Irena Sendler continued as a social worker and taught in vocational schools. She didn't seek attention for many years and didn't make friends with the communist Government of Poland.
Kansas School Girls Discover Irina Sendler
Unlike Schindler, whose story received international attention, Sendler was almost forgotten until four Kansas schoolgirls wrote a play about her nine years ago.
'Life in a Jar' started as a National History Day project in September of 1999. Norm Conard, a high school teacher, encouraged students to investigate the life of Irena Sendler. He gave them a 1994 clipping of U.S News and World Report, which mentioned Irena in a story called "Other Schindlers". The students found out that Mrs. Sendler was alive and visited her in Poland in 2001. They also wrote Life in a Jar (named after the hiding place), which re-enacted her heroic acts.
Belated Recognition For Anti-Nazi Activist Irina Sendler
On October 19, 1965, Yad Vashem recognized Irena Sendler as Righteous Among the Nations. In 2003, Pope John Paul II sent a personal letter to Sendler, praising her altruistic wartime efforts.
In 2007, she was honored by Poland's Senate. At age 97, she was unable to attend, but she sent a letter through Elzbieta Ficowska, whom she saved as a baby.
"After the Second World War, it seemed that humanity understood something and that nothing similar would happen again," Sendler said in her letter. "Humanity has understood nothing. Religious, tribal, national wars continue. The world continues to be in a sea of blood."
But she also added: "The world can be better if there's love, tolerance and humility."
Sendler certainly practised this kind of humility:
"Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory."
Sendler was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prized in 2007, but lost out to Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States.
Irena Sendler's meeting with students from Kansas on You Tube.
House of the Wannsee Conference, Memorial Site in Berlin
Berlin Holocaust Memorial, Germany's Central Holocaust Memorial
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