Irena Sendler - Guardian of Children

Irena Sendler saved the lives of 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust.

“If you see someone drowning, you must jump in to save them, whether you can swim or not.” These were the words Irena Sendler’s father spoke when she was only seven years old. He was a doctor who died of typhus after caring for poor Jewish families during an epidemic in their Polish town. His words stayed with Irena for the rest of her life. During World War II, she saved over 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis.

Irena was born in 1910 in Otwock, Poland. After her father’s death, Jewish leaders, touched by his kindness, helped pay for her schooling. She studied literature at Warsaw University and later became a social worker. In 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland and took control of Warsaw, she was nearly 30 years old.

Even as Nazi bombs fell and soldiers filled the streets, Irena began helping Jewish families by bringing them food and finding them shelter. Soon, the Warsaw Ghetto was created. The ghetto was surrounded by 10–foot–high walls topped with barbed wire and guarded by soldiers who would shoot anyone trying to escape. About 400,000 Jews were forced into the ghetto, an area of just 1.3 square miles. People were given tiny rations of food, only 181 calories a day. Starvation, disease, and random killings filled the ghetto, and later hundreds of thousands were sent to the Treblinka death camp.

Between 1939 and 1942, Irena and her friends made over 3,000 false papers to help Jewish families escape. In 1942, she joined the underground group Zegota and ran its children’s section. Because she worked for the Social Welfare Department, she had papers that allowed her to enter the ghetto under the excuse of checking for disease. Wearing a Star of David to show her support, she begged Jewish parents to give up their children. Parents faced a terrible choice: send their children away with no guarantees, or keep them in the ghetto, where death was almost certain.

Irena and her group of 25 volunteers smuggled children out using many methods. Sometimes she hid them in ambulances, suitcases, or trunks. Other times she carried them out in body bags or sent them through sewers and secret passages. Children who spoke Polish well could even pass through a church near the ghetto and later be taken to safety. Every attempt carried huge risk, since German guards were watching closely.

Once out of the ghetto, children were hidden in Polish homes, convents, or orphanages. Irena told families they must return the children after the war if relatives survived. To keep track, she wrote the children’s real names on tissue paper, sealed the papers in jars, and buried them under an apple tree across from a German barracks.

In October 1943, the Gestapo raided Irena’s home. She quickly handed the list of names to a friend, who hid it. The Germans arrested Irena and took her to Pawiak prison, where she was beaten so badly her legs and feet were broken. She was sentenced to death by firing squad. Irena later admitted she felt almost relieved, because the constant fear of being caught was overwhelming. But Zegota bribed a guard, who helped her escape just before execution. The next day, posters were put up saying she had been shot. She even saw one herself.

Irena went into hiding but continued her work until the war ended. With the help of convents, orphanages, and the Polish Resistance, she saved at least 2,500 children. After the war, she dug up her jars and tried to reunite children with surviving family, but most of their parents had died at Treblinka.

For the next 50 years, Irena lived quietly in communist Poland. She suffered nightmares and asked herself often, “Did I do enough?” In 1999, a group of high school students in Kansas uncovered her story, bringing her heroism to the world’s attention. In 2007, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Irena Sendler died in 2008 at the age of 98, remembered as a woman of great courage who lived by her father’s words.

References:
“The Courageous Story of Irena Sendler.” Life in a Jar, 26 Aug. 2024, irenasendler.org/.
“Irena Sendler (1910–2008).” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/information/press/in-memoriam/irena-sendler-1910-2008.
“‘Women of Valor.’” Irena Sendler | Stories of Women Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, wwv.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-women/sendler.asp.

Key words:
Civil Rights, Justice, Courage, Perseverance, Responsibility, Selflessness, Challenge Injustices, Take Risks for Others

Image Citation:
Public Domain

Explore ARTEFFECT projects about this Unsung Hero:
Irena Sendler Artworks