I suppose this would be a more fitting article for Yom Ha-Shoah or Holocaust Memorial Day, but a friend of mine (thanks, Ken) forwarded an email to me about the life of Irena Sendler, and I was so moved, I couldn’t wait to tell you about her. Here’s what the email said:
On May 12, 2008, a 98 year-old lady named Irena died. During World War II, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing and Sewer specialist. She had an “ulterior motive”. She knew what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews, (being German). Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried, and she 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 children’s and infant’s noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2,500 children and 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 it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won for a slide show on Global Warming.
The prize doesn’t always go to the most deserving person.
The details in the email weren’t completely accurate, so I did some research. According to snopes.com, unlike Oskar Schindler, whose story was told to the world in Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award-winning 1993 film Schindler’s List, Irena Sendlerowa (more commonly known as Irena Sendler) remained largely anonymous, until 1999, when a small group of Kansas high school students, encouraged by their teacher, brought her story out into the light, by writing and performing the play Life in a Jar.
Although Irena is no longer with us, her life and her heroism live on, not only in continuing performances of “Life in a Jar”, but at The Irena Sendler Project, a web site dedicated to sharing Irena’s story with the world:
Protestant kids from rural Kansas, discover a Polish Catholic woman, who saved Jewish children. Irena Sendler and students from Uniontown, Kansas have chosen to repair the world (Tikkun Olam). This web site shares the legacy and life of Irena Sendler, plus her ‘discovery’ for the world.
-from the introduction on The Irena Sendler Project website
If you’re interested in seeing the original play, it has been recorded and is available on DVD. On Sunday, April 19, 2009, CBS broadcast Irena’s story in the 236th presentation of the Hallmark Hall of Fame, in the film: The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler. Finally, Irena’s story is being told.
I encourage everyone reading these words to visit The Irena Sendler Project and learn more about the life of this very remarkable woman. Irena is now with God, but her story remains with us as a constant reminder of her enormous courage in the face of evil.
Let us never forget.
