Although the official Holocaust Memorial Day has passed remembrance events and activities are still taking place worldwide. One such presentation involves the Irena Sendler story.
Thanks to Israeli start Up Wibbitz Beta:
Irena Sendler was a young Polish social worker in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland. She immediately began to help Jews escape and assisted those who did escape by finding them places where they could hide. It is estimated that in those early days of the Nazi occupation Sendler helped over 500 Jews evade the Nazi dragnet.
By 1940 Sendler had joined the Zagota, a Polish underground which specialized in saving Jewish children. Sendler concentrated on the children who were living in the Warsaw ghetto and she obtained false papers that identified her as a nurse so that she could make daily trips into the ghetto to bring in food and medications. When she left each day she would smuggle children out of the ghetto. Many of the children were orphans while others were children whose parents had agreed to entrust their children into her care. Sendler later described how she “talked the mothers out of their children” and she would then ferry them to the Polish side of Warsaw in toolboxes or coffins — even sometimes in bags with barking dogs sitting on top of the sedated children. She and her Zagota friends also brought many children out of the ghetto through the sewers and via other underground passages.
Most of the children were taken in by Catholic orphanages or by individual families. Sendler recorded the names of all of “her” children on scraps of tissue paper which she then buried in her backyard. She hoped that she would be able to reunite the children with their families or, if not, with the Jewish community after the war.
In 1943 Sendler was captured by the Nazis who imprisoned and tortured her, breaking both of her feet. Despite the indescribable torment Sendler did not reveal any information about the children and eventually her Zagota comrades were able to bribe a German guard and secure her release. Sendler was taken into hiding and she spent the rest of the war underground.
Since the Irena Sendler story was revealed it has been made into a play through funding of the LMC and Jewish businessman Lowell Milken. This play called ‘ Life in a Jar’ continues to be performed several times each year for worldwide audiences. In addition the Irena Sendler website and award-winning book perpetuate the story of Irena’s bravery.
