IN LOVING MEMORY OF IRENA SENDLER (15 FEBRUARY 1910 TO 12 MAY 2008)

 

Irena Sendler [PHOTO SOURCE: http://izquotes.com/quote/265881]

I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality.

[Quoted in "Holocaust heroine's survival tale" by Adam Easton in BBC News (2005-03-03)]

AUTHOR: Irena Sendler (née Krzyżanowska, also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, Nom de guerre Jolanta; 15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008) was a Polish nurse/social worker who served in the Polish Underground during World War II, and as head of children's section of Żegota, an underground resistance organization in German-occupied Warsaw. Assisted by some two dozen other Żegota members, Sendler smuggled some 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and then provided them with false identity documents and with housing outside the Ghetto, saving those children during the Holocaust.

The Nazis eventually discovered her activities, tortured her, and sentenced her to death, but she managed to evade execution and survive the war. In 1965, Sendler was recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations. Late in life she was awarded Poland's highest honor for her wartime humanitarian efforts. She appears on a silver 2008 Polish commemorative coin honoring some of the Polish Righteous among the Nations.