Bravery: Irena Sendler

Hey Amanda,

I am honored to introduce you to Irene Sendler. 

Irena Sendler lived in Warsaw during WWII. She joined the Polish Council to Aid the Jews, an underground resistance group, and led their children’s division. She volunteered as a nurse in the Warsaw ghetto and smuggled infants to safety, sedating them and packing them in crates. She trained a dog to bark when a baby cried so that he could ride in the back of her truck and protect the babies from discovery if the children awoke. She arranged for Catholic boarding schools to shelter children, and when she could she would find hiding places for their mothers. She forged documents to give the children new identities, carefully archiving their real names for return back to Jewish families after the war. 

She risked her life every time she entered the ghetto. She personally carried 400 infants to safety and saved some 2,100 other Jews through her work.

Eventually Sendler was reported. The Gestupo tortured her to find the locations of the hidden Jews, breaking the bones in her feet, but she never gave in. On the way to execution her friends bribed the guards, taking her to safety.

When asked about her wartime service, Sendler said “Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth and not a title to glory.” She died in May 2008.

Bravery: n. an act of endurance, of following the moral dictates of your conscience. An act of doing what no one would blame you for not doing. see also Sendler, Irena

For the memory of Irena Sendler, and the kind of person we all hope we would be under similar circumstances, please share her story-- here are some links.

-Stephanie