A great hero has died. Irena Sendler who was credited with saving over 2500 children from the warsaw ghetto during the war passed away at the age of 98.
Using the pretext of inspecting sanitary conditions in the ghetto, Irena and a team of about 25 people would smuggle children and babies out. Hiding them in baskets, or sometimes even wrapping them as packages they would smuggle them out in ambulances or trams. She was eventually caught in 1943 and was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo.
She only escaped execution when the Zegota organization managed to bribe some Nazi officials, who then left her unconscious but alive with broken legs and arms in the woods.
She only escaped execution when the Zegota organization managed to bribe some Nazi officials, who then left her unconscious but alive with broken legs and arms in the woods.
Irena Sendler was among the first to be honoured by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as a Righteous Among Nations for her wartime heroism. She was also later made an honourary Isreali citizen. Sendler was almost forgotten in her Poland until recently when she came to the world's attention in 2000 when a group of schoolgirls from Uniontown, Kan., wrote a short play about her called "Life in a Jar." This play has been performed in the US, Canada and Poland.
Reading about this woman has made me feel small and yet hopeful. I can not imagine being so brave in the face of such horror. Saving so many is mind boggling. Could I or you have done this?
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