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IRENA SENDLER. “He who changes one person, changes the world entire”.
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IRENA SENDLER “He who changes one person, changes the world entire”.
Irena Sendler, born in 1910, in Warsaw, Poland, was raised by her parents to respect and love people regardless of their ethnicity or social status. Her father, a physician, died from typhus that he contracted during an epidemic in 1917. He was the only doctor in his town of Otwock, near Warsaw who would treat the poor, mostly Jewish community of this tragic disease. As he was dying, he told 7-year-old Irena, “If you see someone drowning you must try to rescue them, even if you cannot swim.”
When World War II started in 1939, Irena immediately started protecting her Jewish friends in Warsaw. She worked as a social services director in Warsaw. She would make false documents for Jews in the city and had already started gathering her famous rescue network. When the Warsaw Ghetto was erected in 1940, Irena saw the danger ahead. When liquidation started in 1942, Irena and her network accelerated the rescue process. An unsungheroine
Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal.
Whileworking with the underground organization, Zegota, Irena and her network would assist in the hiding of many children and many adults in homes around the city. Irena was caught by the Gestapo and almost killed in 1943. She escaped Pawiakprison. Her close encounter with death did not deter her from continuing her activity. After her release in February 1944, shecontinued her underground activities. Because of the danger she had to go into hiding – itprevented her from attending her mother's funeral.
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 also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: "No one ever refused to take a child from me," she said. The children were given false identities and placed in homes, orphanages and convents. Irena Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the childrens original names and their new identities. She kept the only record of their true identities in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's back yard, across the street from German barracks, hoping she could someday dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past.In all, the jars contained the names of 2,500 children ...
On October 19, 1965, YadVashem recognized Irena Sendler as Righteous Among the Nations. The tree planted in her honor stands at the entrance to the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations. Righteous Among the Nations Thetree of Irena Sendler
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 was the last survivor of the Children's Section of the Żegota Council to Assist Jews, which she had headed from August 1943 until the end of the war.Shedied in Warsaw on May 12, 2008. 1910-02-15 - 2008-05-12
In the Name of Their Mothersmovie • The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendlermovie • Life in a Jar project and bookLife in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project by Jack Mayer • Mother of the Children of the Holocaustbook by Anna Mieszkowska • Irenasong by SixteenDead Men About Irena Sendler
Life in a Jar is a project that began in the fall of 1999. Fourrural Kansas students discovered the story whileresearching for a National History Day projectin a 1994 issue of U.S. News & World Report. Sendler’sstory was largely unknown to the world until the students developed The Irena Sendler Project, producing their performance Life in a Jar. This student-produced drama has now been performed over 285 times all across the United States, in Canada and in Poland. Life in a jar
Sendler's message of love and respect has grown through the performances, over 1500 media stories, a student-developed websitewith 30,000,000 hits, a national teaching award in Poland and the United States, and an educational foundation, the Lowell Milken Center, to make Sendler’s story known to the world. Thewww.irenasendler.orgwebsite tells more about Irena's life.The Life in a Jar students, who brought worldwide attention to her story, continue to share her legacy and the play to people all over the world.
Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes. Indeed, that term irritates me greatly. The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little.
The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009) is a moviedirected by John Kent Harrison starring Anna Paquin as Irena Sendler. Its plot isbased on Mother of the Children of the Holocaustbook by Anna Mieszkowska. Themoviehadits’ premiere on 66th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising on CBS. Itgotseveralnominations for movie industry awards and got an Emmy Award for thebestcharacterization.
Over a half-century has passed since the hell of the Holocaust, but its spectre still hangs over the world and doesn’t allow us to forget…
The Irena Sendler Award ‘For Repairing the World’ was established in 2006. Its objective is to honour primary, junior and secondary school teachers, who teach and bring their students up in a spirit of tolerance and respect for others, who inspire to act by the rules and play an active role in their schools and local communities. The Association of 'Children of the Holocaust' in Poland and the American foundation 'Life in a Jar' were the initiators of the Award. The Center for Citizenship Education is a partner and an organizer of the Award. The laureates of the Irena Sendler Award receive a prize of 15,000 PLN. THE IRENA SENDLER AWARD
