Irena Sendler
There recently was a death of a 98
year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an
'ulterior motive' ... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (she
being German). Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool
box she carried. She also carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack,
(for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back that she trained
to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the
barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing
this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She
was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out
and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have
survived and reunited the family. Most had been gassed.
Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or
adopted. Last year (2007) Irena was up
for the Nobel Peace Prize ... She was not selected.
The story of Irena Sendler is true. According
to a website set up in her honor at - Life In A Jar-THE IRENA SENDLER PROJECT- she was not widely known until a
series of events that started in Kansas in the U.S.A. in 1999.
A teacher in a rural Kansas town discovered a short magazine article that claimed that a Polish woman saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 and 1943. He gave the story to four high school students and asked them to check it out. He said he'd never heard of the woman and speculated that the article may have gotten the facts wrong.
The students looked into the story and discovered that Irena Sendler was real, her story was accurate, and that she was still alive and living in Poland.
Sendler was a Catholic social worker during the 1940s who saw the handwriting on the wall for the Jews of Poland. She became concerned for the children in the Warsaw Ghetto, which was one of the largest ghettos of Jews established by the Nazis. The population of the Warsaw Ghetto dropped from 450,000 to about 70,000 people because of starvation, sickness, and tens of thousands of Jews deported to concentration camps and death.
Sendler convinced Jewish parents that their children were facing death either in the Ghetto or in concentration camps and offered to rescue them. She smuggled the children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and hid them in the homes of Poles who adopted them or in orphanages or convents. She made lists of the children's names and family connections and hid them in jars in her garden so that someday she could find the children and tell them who they were.
Sendler was eventually discovered, arrested, tortured, and imprisoned by the Nazis. The Polish underground bribed a guard to let her escape and she spent the rest of the war in hiding.
The students in Kansas developed a performance titled Life In a Jar that tells the story of Irena Sendler. Those performances and the publicity that resulted have thrust the news about Irena Sendler around the world.
A teacher in a rural Kansas town discovered a short magazine article that claimed that a Polish woman saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 and 1943. He gave the story to four high school students and asked them to check it out. He said he'd never heard of the woman and speculated that the article may have gotten the facts wrong.
The students looked into the story and discovered that Irena Sendler was real, her story was accurate, and that she was still alive and living in Poland.
Sendler was a Catholic social worker during the 1940s who saw the handwriting on the wall for the Jews of Poland. She became concerned for the children in the Warsaw Ghetto, which was one of the largest ghettos of Jews established by the Nazis. The population of the Warsaw Ghetto dropped from 450,000 to about 70,000 people because of starvation, sickness, and tens of thousands of Jews deported to concentration camps and death.
Sendler convinced Jewish parents that their children were facing death either in the Ghetto or in concentration camps and offered to rescue them. She smuggled the children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and hid them in the homes of Poles who adopted them or in orphanages or convents. She made lists of the children's names and family connections and hid them in jars in her garden so that someday she could find the children and tell them who they were.
Sendler was eventually discovered, arrested, tortured, and imprisoned by the Nazis. The Polish underground bribed a guard to let her escape and she spent the rest of the war in hiding.
The students in Kansas developed a performance titled Life In a Jar that tells the story of Irena Sendler. Those performances and the publicity that resulted have thrust the news about Irena Sendler around the world.
During WWII
ReplyDeleteAs the gas chambers began
Irena knew just what to do
To thwart the Nazi's plan
She got permission to drive
Into the Warsaw ghetto
With an ulterior motive
She had places where children could stow
And in her tool box, an infant
A sack, a child or two
A barking to through off the scent
Or sound of crying too
Foster care plans were made
She kept a record of each one
In a jar hidden away
Twenty five hundred...She had just begun
But, then she was caught
And suffered terribly
For she must be taught!
They beat her severely
Her arms and legs were broken
But not her desire to help
Her vow to each child spoken
To put families back herself
But when the war was over
Most of the parents were dead
A reminder to uncover
How ugly is hatred
I thought I'd share my poem about her...