AFRICAN PEACE MAGAZINE MARCH ISSUE

In this edition of Peace Footprint, we
look at the life of Irena Sendler, a
Polish Nurse/social worker who
saved the life of over 2,500 Jewish
children during the Holocaust. The
Nazis uncovered her activities,
tortured her and sentenced her to
death, but she managed to escape
and survive the war.
. In 1965, Sendler was recognized by
the State of Israel as Righteous
among the Nations. Later in life she
was awarded Poland's highest honor
for her wartime humanitarian
efforts. She appears on a silver 2008
Po l i s h c o m m e m o r a t i v e c o i n
h o n o r i n g s o m e o f t h e Po l i s h
PEACE FOOTPRINT
Department, she had a special
permit to enter the Warsaw
Ghetto to check for signs of
typhus – something the Nazis
feared would spread beyond the
Ghetto. During these visits, she
wore a Star of David as a sign of
solidarity with the Jewish people
and so as not to call attention to
herself.
Professor Dwork, the author of
“Children With a Star” (Yale
University Press, 1991), said
about 400 children had been
directly smuggled out by Mrs.
Sendler. She and her co‐workers
buried lists of the hidden children
IRENA SENDLER
Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory
Righteous among the Nations.
Irena Sendler was born as Irena
Krzyżanowska on 15 February 1910
i n W a r s a w t o D r. S t a n i s ł a w
Krzyżanowski, a physician, and his
wife, Janina. Her father died in
F e b r u a r y 1 9 1 7 f r o m t y p h u s
contracted while treating patients
whom his colleagues refused to treat
in fear of contracting the disease,
among them many Jews. After his
death, Jewish community leaders
offered her mother help in paying for
Sendler's education. Sendler studied
Po l i s h l i t e r a t u r e a t W a r s a w
University, and joined the Socialist
party. She opposed the ghettobench
system that existed at some
prewar Polish universities and
defaced her grade card. As a result of
h e r p u b l i c p r o t e s t s h e w a s
suspended from the University of
Warsaw for three years. She married
Mieczyslaw Sendler, but the couple
divorced in 1947. In 1947, she
married Stefan Zgrzembski, a
Jewish friend from her university
days. They had three children,
Janina, Andrzej (who died in infancy)
and Adam (who died of heart failure in
1999). She divorced Zgrzembski in
1959, and remarried her first husband,
Mieczyslaw Sendler. This rematch also
failed. She lived in Warsaw for the rest
of her life, and is survived by daughter,
Janina "Janka" Zgrzembska.
During the German occupation of
Poland, Sendler lived in Warsaw (prior
to that, she had lived in Otwock and
Tarczyn while working for urban Social
Welfare departments). As early as 1939,
when the Germans invaded Poland, she
began aiding Jews. She and her helpers
c r e a t e d m o r e t h a n 3 , 0 0 0 f a l s e
documents to help Jewish families,
prior to joining the organized Żegota
resistance and the children's division.
Helping Jews in German‐occupied
Poland meant all household members
risked death if they were found to be
hiding Jews, a punishment far more
severe than in other occupied European
countries. In August 1943, Sendler
(known by her nom de guerre: Jolanta)
was nominated by the underground
Polish Council to Aid Jews Żegota, to
head its Jewish children's section. As an
employee of the Social Welfare
in jars in order to keep track of
their original and new identities.
Żegota assured the children that,
when the war was over, they
would be returned to Jewish
relatives. In 1943, Sendler was
arrested by the Gestapo, severely
tortured, and sentenced to death.
Żegota saved her by bribing
German guards on the way to her
execution. She was listed on
public bulletin boards as among
t h o s e e x e c u t e d . F o r t h e
remainder of the war, she lived in
hiding, but continued her work for
the Jewish children. After the war,
she and her co‐workers gathered
together all of their records with
the names and locations of the
hidden Jewish children and gave
them to their Żegota colleague
Adolf Berman and his staff at the
Central Committee of Polish
Jews. However, almost all of their
parents had been killed at the
Treblinka extermination camp or
gone missing.
On 14 March 2007, Sendler was
honored by the Polish Senate.