Leah Bitsky
Staff Writer

Irena Sendler past away recently; very few people knew her story. She lived in Warsaw, Germany during World War II as a practicing Catholic and worked as a social worker for an organization called Żegota and the Polish Underground Railroad.

Growing up, Sendler was always simpathetic towards Jewish people. She had a specialized permit that allowed her into the Wasraw Ghetto because she was an employee of the Social Welfare Department; her job was to check the Jews for typhus.

She worked in secret and arranged it so that the children could be snuck out of camp in boxes, trolleyes, and even suitcases. In addition, she would also smuggle small children and babies out by disguising them as packages in ambulances and trams.

The rescued children were placed into Polish homes, orphanages, and convents for hiding from danger.

 This was a huge risk for her to take. If she was caught helping the Jews, she would at the least be put in jail. In all, she smuggled nearly 2,500 Jewish children to safety.

She filed a list of all the names of the children she smuggled and kept them in jars. She then hid the jars underground and buried them.

Sendler was arrested, severally tortured, and sentenced to death by the Gestapo (the Nazi Germany secret police.) Żegota, an underground organization that aided Jews during WWII, bribed the guards on the way to her execution to free her. Sendler was abandoned in the woods, and knocked unconscious, her arms and legs broken.

The public was told that her execution had gone successfully and so Sendler stayed in hiding for the remainder of the war. While in hiding, however, she still continued to rescue Jewish children.

When the war was over, Sendler dug up the Jars and tried to locate the children’s families. Unfortunately, most of the parents were either killed or had gone missing.

The children that she saved continued to stay in touch with Sendler. “To me, and many rescued children, Irena Sendlerowa is a third mother. Good, wise, kind, always accepting, she shares our happiness and worries. We drop in for Irena’s advice when life presents us with difficulties,” said Elzbieta Ficowska, one of the children that Sendler rescued.

To the people she rescued, and many others, Irena Sendler is known as a heroic woman. “If being a saint is complete devotion to a cause, bravery and altruism, then I think Mrs Sendlerowa fulfils all the conditions. I think about her the way you think about someone you owe your life to,” said Michal Glowinski, a literature professor.

After all the amazing things she did for the unfortunate children in the Warsaw Ghetto, Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago.