Irena Sendler (Sendlerowa), a Polish woman who risked her life to save 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi killing machine during World War II, passed away on Monday at a Warsaw hospital. She was 98 years old. Sendler is survived by her daughter and granddaughter.
Sendler was one of the first people honored by the Israeli Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem as
Sendler was one of the first people honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" for her efforts to rescue Jews. However, she was not permitted by Poland's Communist regime to travel to Israel at the time of the honor, in 1965.
Sendler was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize at the behest of Polish President Lech Kaczynski. The Polish President expressed "great regret" and called Sendler "an exceptional person" who displayed uncommon bravery in her life.
In 2003, Irena Sendler received the Jan Karski Award for Valor and Courage. In 2007, the Polish Senate honored Sendler, as well. In a letter to the legislators last year, Sendler wrote, "Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory."
Sendler, a Catholic, was in charge of the Children's Division of Zegota, an underground group in Nazi-occupied Poland dedicated to assisting Jews. She took part, as a member of Zegota and beforehand, in efforts to provide persecuted Jewish families with food, shelter and false documentation. However, Sendler is most well known for her key role, along with a network of 30 others, for having smuggled approximately 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and into Polish safe houses in 1942 and 1943.
Irena was eventually captured by the Nazis, tortured and sentenced to death. It was only thanks to a bribe offered to the executioner that Irena was able to escape death, and she then went into hiding herself for the remainder of the war.
In order to assure that the rescued Jewish children would be able to return to their people after the war, Irena wrote their names and locations on slips of paper, which were eventually hidden in a jar and buried. At the end of World War II, it was clear that the vast majority of the relatives of the hidden children had been murdered in Nazi death camps.
Rescuing the Rescuer's Story
In 1999, the story of the jar of names and the heroism behind it inspired four American students from Uniontown, in rural Kansas, to study the events for a National History Day project. Three ninth-grade girls, Megan Stewart, Elizabeth Cambers and Jessica Shelton, and an eleventh-grade girl, Sabrina Coons, wrote a performance called "Life in a Jar", in which they portrayed the life of Irena Sendler. After the girls managed to make contact with Sendler in Warsaw, the play gained national and international press attention.
Since 2000, the young women, now married and out of college, have performed the play hundreds of times before varied audiences around the world (245 performances as of March 2008). "Life in a Jar" has inspired an Irena Sendler Day in Uniontown. The Irena Sendler Project collects funds for Polish Holocaust rescuers, and grants the Irena Sendler Award, which is given to one teacher in Poland and one in the United States whose innovative and inspirational teaching of the Holocaust exemplifies Sendler's respect for all people.
Students currently involved with Life in a Jar have tracked down the fate of about 650 of the children.
Students currently involved with Life in a Jar have tracked down the fate of about 650 of the children whose names Irena wrote down. The lists themselves were taken to Israel after the state was founded.
After meeting the Kansas students and being told of their tremendous efforts to preserve and pass on her story, Irena Sendler said, "My emotion is being shadowed by the fact that no one from the circle of my faithful coworkers, who constantly risked their lives, could live long enough to enjoy all the honors that now are falling upon me.... I can't find the words to thank you, my dear girls.... Before the day you have written the play 'Life in a Jar' nobody in my own country and few in the whole world knew about my person and my work during the war...."
Further details of Irena Sendler's story can be read on the Life in a Jar website.
