She was neither a saint nor a scholar. Irena Sendler was just a nurse and a social worker. But her remarkable life asks everyone: ‘On whose side are you – life or death – light or darkness?’
Born on 15 February 1910 in Warsaw, Poland, Irena was probably influenced by her courageous father, a doctor – Dr Stanisław Krzyżanowski. When she was just seven, he died from typhus contracted while treating patients whom his colleagues refused to treat in fear of contracting the disease. She studied Polish literature at Warsaw University, but became a social worker.
Germany’s Nazi forces invaded Poland in 1939 and rounded up about 450,000 Jews and forced them to live in what came to be called the Warsaw Ghetto. Nobody could get in or out. But Irena was determined to save the jailed Jews, especially their children. Since Irena was an employee of the Social Welfare Department, she had a special permit to enter the Ghetto to check for signs of typhus, then a deadly disease the Germans feared. Under the pretext of conducting inspections of sanitary conditions within the Ghetto, Sendler and her co-workers smuggled out Jewish babies and children, sometimes in ambulances and trams, sometimes hiding them in packages and suitcases. She was aware it was a huge risk, as the Nazis had announced that giving any kind of assistance to Jews in the German-occupied Poland was punishable by death – not just for the person who was providing the help but also for their entire family.
Undeterred by such enormous risks, Sendler smuggled approximately 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and then provided them with false identity documents and shelter outside the Ghetto, saving those children from certain death in gas chambers. Jewish children were given Christian names and placed with Polish Christian families or orphanages run by Sisters. But since Sendler hoped to return them to their Jewish families and faith when the war was over, she kept carefully written lists with their original names and parents and the fake Christian names and Christian families that sheltered them. She and her co-workers hid these lists in glass jars which they buried.
But the Nazis eventually discovered all that she did to save Jewish children and arrested her on 20 October 1943. They tortured her severely, breaking her legs and feet. Since she refused to divulge any information about her co-workers or the children they rescued, she was sentenced to death by firing squad. But Zegota, the secret organization formed to save Jews of which she was a member, managed to save her just before her execution, by bribing the guards who helped her escape. On the following day the Germans put up posters all over the city, declaring Irena Sendler was shot dead. Irena read the posters herself.
After her escape she was forced to live a hidden life, working as a nurse with a false name. When finally the Nazis had to flee Poland to escape from the advancing Soviet troops and the war was over, she dug up the glass jars with the records of children she saved and tried to find their parents. Sadly, most of them had died in the Nazi extermination camps. Later the Communists who came to power in Poland harassed her because of her involvement with groups that opposed the Communist oppression.
When her extraordinary achievements came to be known, she was showered with awards. In 1965 Sendler was recognised by the government of Israel as ‘Righteous among the Nations.’ Later she was awarded ‘the Order of the White Eagle’, Poland’s highest civilian honour. In 2003, Pope John Paul II sent Sendler a personal letter praising her. “Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this earth,” she said. She died on 12 May 2008, aged 98, and is buried in Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery.
While Nazis of every age and every society continue to hate, to torture and kill, Irena Sendlers of every age continue to love, care and save.
To subscribe to the magazine Contact Us
