Born: February 15, 1910, Otwock, Russian partition of Poland (presently Poland)
Died: May 11, 2008, Warsaw, Poland
Early days. Her father, Stanislaw Krzyzanowski, a doctor in Otwock near Warsaw, whose patients were mostly poor Jews, was an activist of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). His ideas had a great influence on young Irena who studied Polish literature, she was part of the leftist Union of Democratic Youth, participated in protests against "bench ghettos" in lecture halls (a regulation instituted by right-wingers on several Polish universities requiring the Jewish students to sit on the left hand side of the lecture hall) and finally she also joined the PPS. Irena worked as senior administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department that ran the canteens of the city, when Germany invaded the country in 1939.
WWII. The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German Nazis on October 16, 1940. At this time, the population of the Ghetto was estimated to be about 380,000 people.
As a social welfare department employee, Sandler received a special permit allowing her to visit the ghetto area at all times, ostensibly for the purpose of combating contagious diseases. This gave her the opportunity to provide many Jews with clothing, medicine, and money. When walking through the ghetto streets, Sendler wore an armband with the Star of David, both as a sign of solidarity with the Jewish people and so as not to call attention to herself. Irena Sendler specialized in smuggling Jewish children out of the ghetto and finding secure places for them with non-Jewish families in the Warsaw region. She began smuggling children out in an ambulance. She recruited at least one person from each of the ten centers of the Social Welfare Department. With their help, she issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures. Some children, after being sedated, were carried out in potato sacks, others were placed in coffins, and some entered a church in the Ghetto which had two entrances. One entrance opened into the Ghetto, the other opened into the "Aryan" side of Warsaw. They entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians. "Can you guarantee they will live?" Sendler later recalled the distraught parents asking. But she could only guarantee they would die if they stayed. Sendler had already been helping Jews well before the founding of Zegota. Jews, whose bank accounts, real estate and property had been quickly confiscated by the Germans, found themselves among the ranks of the poor, yet by German edict were denied all forms of assistance. This courageous woman was one of the most dedicated and active workers in aiding Jews during the Nazi occupation.
Joining ‘Zegota’. In October 1942, when in German-occupied Poland the Council for Aid to Jews - codename "Zegota" – was created; Sendler was one of its first recruits and became the director of its Children’s Section using the codename: Jolanta.
She became a valuable asset to Zegota, for she had already enlisted a large group of people in her charitable work, including her companion Irena Schulz, who had a widespread network of contacts in the ghetto and on the "Aryan" side. Irena Sendler accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. "I sent most of the children to religious establishments," she recalled. "I knew I could count on the Sisters." Irena Sendler is credited with helping to save 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, and personally saving about 600. They had to learn the Catholic catechism because German inspectors visited and demanded that "suspect" Jewish children recite it as proof that they were Christian. Those who survived were reunited with their families, if they had any, but some voluntarily converted to Catholicism after the war. Each of her coworkers was made responsible for several blocks of apartments where Jewish children were sheltered. She herself oversaw eight or ten apartments where Jews were hiding under her care. The sheltering families were supported by funds from Zegota. It was easier to escape the ghetto than to survive on the Aryan side. The rescue of a child required the help of at least ten people. Children were first taken to units of caring service (pogotowie opiekuncze) and later to a safe place. For Sendler, a young mother herself, persuading parents to part with their children was in itself a horrendous task. As a rule, the children were first placed in a temporary shelter, then to a foster home after they had somewhat recovered from their period of destitution. There was also a need to wait for them to receive from the Polish Underground false identity papers that were good enough to pass German muster. Each child had to be provided with a fictitious birth and baptismal certificate and a family history of parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, etc. which the children, if old enough, had to memorize. Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the children’s original names and their new identities and buried the information in glass jars in a garden so that at some point in the future they could be returned to their parents, or at least know who they had been. In all Sendler’s jars contained the names of 2,500 children. Sendler saved personally about 400 Jewich children.
Arrested by Gestapo. But the Germans became aware of Sendler's activities, and on October 20, 1943 she was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo. Irena Sendler ended up in Pawiak Prison when the owner of one of her meeting places divulged her name while being tortured. But no one could break her spirit. Though she was the only one who knew the names and addresses of the families sheltering the Jewish children, she withstood torture (both of her feet and legs were broken), refusing to betray either her associates or any of the Jewish children in hiding. Sentenced to death, Irena was saved at the last minute when Zegota members bribed one of the Germans to halt the execution. As a result, she was listed on public bulletin boards as among those on whom a sentence of death had been carried out. Rescued, she had to assume a completely new identity and live an entirely new life. She could not visit her dying mother, nor attend her funeral. But she did again become deeply involved in the work of Zegota.
After WWII. At the end of the war, Irena dug up the jars and used the notes to find the 2.500 children she had given to adoptive families. She reunited some with their relatives scattered across Europe, but most of them had lost their families in Nazi concentration camps.
Years later, after she was honored for her wartime work, her picture appeared in a newspaper. "A man, a painter, telephoned me," said Sendler" `I remember your face,' he said. `It was you who took me out of the ghetto.' I had many calls like that!" Irena Sendler does not consider herself as a hero. She never claimed any credit for her actions. "I could have done more," she said. "This regret will follow me to my death." In 1965 the Yad Vashem organization in Jerusalem awarded her with the title Righteous Among the Nations and in 1991 she was made an honorary citizen of Israel. After the war she worked for Social Welfare; she helped create houses for elderly people, orphanages and an emergency service for children.
She was interviewed in 1995 on camera in a 40-minute French documentary by Polish-born writer and film-maker Marek Halter. Now, confined to a wheelchair, she continues to live in Warsaw where in May, 2001 she was visited by a group of four high school students from a rural school in Uniontown, Kansas. The students, accompanied by their parents and history teacher, Norman Conard, came to meet the person whose life story inspired them to create a prize-winning dramatic presentation "Life in a Jar." The presentation, seen in many venues in the United States and popularized by National Public Radio, C-SPAN and CBS has brought Sendler’s story of great courage and dedication to a wider public.
On October 23, 2003 Irena Sendler was honored by a $20,000 Jan Karski Freedom Award for Valor and Compassion by Freedom House and The American Center of Polish Culture. In 2003 she received Polish Order of the White Eagle. In 2007 she was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. Sendler was married first to Mieczyslaw Sendler. This marriage ended with divorce after WWII. Next she married Stefan Zgrzembski. She had two sons, both died and a daughter Janina.
Based mostly on an article in :
Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
not copyright protected.
Other sources:
Holocaust Forgotten
Prof.Gessner
Yad Vashem
Kansas State Historical Society
Return to home page:
Prominent Poles
