WARSAW - 14 May 2008 - 510 words
Polish woman who saved thousands of children from Holocaust has died
Jo Siedlecka
A Polish Catholic social worker who saved more than 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi death camps, died on Monday in Warsaw.
The story of Irena Sendler was only made public nine ago, when four high school students from Kansas, wrote a play about her.
Megan Felt, one of the students, said:
"Irena wasn't even five feet tall, but she walked into the
Warsaw ghetto daily and faced certain death if she was caught.
Her strength and courage showed us we can stand up for what we
believe in."
Mrs Sendler was born on 15 February, 1910, in Otwock, a small
town near Warsaw. She was an only child whose parents raised her
to care about those in need. She was especially influenced by
her father, a doctor who defied anti-Semites by treating sick
Jews during outbreaks of typhoid fever. He died of the disease
when Irena was just nine.
Irena studied at Warsaw University and was a social worker when
the German occupation of Poland began in 1939. In 1940, after
the Nazis herded Jews into the ghetto and built a wall separating
it from the rest of Warsaw, disease ran rampant. Social workers
were not allowed in the ghetto, but Mrs Sendler passed herself
off as a sanitary worker, allowed to bring in food, clothes and
medicine.
By 1942, when it became clear what the Nazis were planning to
do to the Jews, Mrs Sendler began to smuggle adults and children
out of the ghetto. One of them was the man she married. It is
believed she rescued about 500 people by herself. She then joined
the Polish underground organization, Zegota, and recruited ten
of her closest friends and with them rescued about 2,500 Jewish
children. They carried out babies and children in suitcases, trolleys
and bags. The penalty for assisting a Jew to escape the ghetto
was death.
Most of the children brought out of the ghetto by Mrs Sendler's
group were taken to convents, orphanages and homes and given non-Jewish
aliases. In the hope of reuniting them with families later, Mrs
Sendler kept their true names on thin pieces of paper which she
rolled up and kept in jars buried in a friend;s garden.
Irena was arrested by the Nazis in 1943 and tortured, but refused
to reveal any information. During one torture session, the Gestapo
broke her legs, and she fainted from pain. When she awoke, a
German officer helped her to escape. He also put her name on a
list of executed prisoners.
When she had recovered from her injuries
she resumed her rescue efforts.
After the war ended Irena unearthed the jars and began trying
to return the children to their families. For many, there were
no relatives left alive. Many of the children were adopted by
Polish families. Others were sent to Israel.
In 1965 she was recognized by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Authority,
as a Righteous Gentile, an honour given to non-Jews who risked
their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. In her own country,
however, her work went unrecognised for years, partly because
anti-Semitism was still rife.
It wasn't until the year 2000 that her story hit the headlines
in Poland, when the group of high school students from Kansas
wrote their play, and a Jewish organisation sponsored their visit
to Irena in Warsaw. Irena gave them more information to expand
their play. The drama has been performed more than 250 times
in the USA, Canada and Poland.
After each performance, the actors used to pass a jar for Mrs
Sendler, raising enough to move her into a nursing home. They
have now started a charity called the Life in a Jar Foundation,
which has raised more than £35,000 to help pay for the care
of the now elderly Holocaust rescuers.
In 2003 Pope John Paul II wrote a personal letter to Irena commending
her great work and example to others. Recently Mrs Sendler was
honored by the Polish government and nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize, but she always shrugged off praise, saying: "Every
child saved with my help is the justification of my existence
on this Earth., and not a title to glory."
For more information see: http://www.irenasendler.org/
Sources: agencies/Polish Radio
© Independent Catholic News 2008
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