Irena Sendler

Few people today know the story of Irena Sendler. It’s a pity, because it’s a story well worth telling, a tale of a very brave and courageous woman.

On this day in history, Irena Sendler was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, October 23, 1943. She was a Catholic woman, sentenced to death because she helped save an estimated 2,500 Jewish children from certain death, smuggling them out of the Jewish Ghetto and placing them with Polish families. She kept meticulous records in the mostly vain hope that these children could be reunited with their families after the war. Though tortured and sentenced to death, she never revealed the names of anyone who helped her, and she was rescued by the underground (Żegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews) in 1944 and spent the rest of the war in hiding. She spent most of the rest of her life in relative obscurity. The communist government of Poland. In 1999 a group of American high school students learned of her story and produced a play about her. It was followed by a TV movie and international attention. You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler and http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/this-day-in-jewish-history/1.681204. In later years, she received many awards and tributes, and was nominated for a Nobel prize a number of time. In 1965, Sendler was recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations. Late in life she was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honor, for her wartime humanitarian efforts. She died in Warsaw in 2008 at age 98. Several schools in Poland are named after her. And now you know the rest of the story.

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Irena Krzyżanowska Sendler, 1942.

 

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