Irena Sendler: The Woman Who Risked Everything to Save Jewish Children.

Irena Sendler: The Woman Who Risked Everything to Save Jewish Children.

Today I want to find out a little about Irena Sendler. She was a remarkable Polish social worker who helped to save hundreds of Jewish children.

She was born as Irena Krzyżanowska on the 15th of February 1910 in Warsaw, which was at the time part of the Russian Empire. Her father was Stanisław Krzyżanowski, he was a doctor who treated poor patients regardless of their religion, often without accepting payment. Many of his patients were Jewish, and after he died from typhus when Irena was only seven years old, members of the Jewish community offered to support the family. Although her mother declined, Irena never forgot their kindness. She later said that her father had taught her that when someone is drowning, you help them, no matter who they are.

She studied at the University of Warsaw, where she opposed the growing discrimination against Jewish students. After leaving university, she worked as a social worker in Warsaw, helping vulnerable families living in poverty.

Everything changed when Germany invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939. After the Germans sealed the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, around 400,000 Jewish men, women and children were trapped inside in overcrowded and desperate conditions. Because Irena worked for Warsaw’s Social Welfare Department, she and several colleagues were able to obtain sanitary passes allowing them to enter the ghetto. Officially, they were carrying out sanitary and disease-control work, but they secretly brought in food, medicine and other supplies at great risk.

As deportations increased during 1942, Irena and her colleagues increased their efforts to help Jewish adults and children escape. By early 1943, she was working with Żegota, the underground Council to Aid Jews. Working under the codename "Jolanta", she helped to organise the rescue of Jewish children from the ghetto. Some children were carried out through hidden routes, while others left disguised as sick patients or hidden in vehicles.

Once the children were safely outside, Irena helped to arrange false identity papers and found places where they could hide, including with Polish families, orphanages and convents. According to later accounts given by Irena and her colleague Jadwiga Piotrowska, some of these records were placed in bottles or jars and buried beneath an apple tree. Irena hoped that after the war the children could be reunited with surviving relatives.

On the 18th of October 1943, the Gestapo arrested Irena. She was imprisoned, beaten and tortured as the Germans demanded the names of her fellow resistance members and the children she had helped. She refused to reveal any information and was sentenced to death, but members of Żegota managed to bribe German officials, allowing her to escape on the day she was due to be executed. She immediately returned to underground work using a false identity.

After the war, Irena continued her career in social work. In 1965, she was recognised by Yad Vashem in Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations for risking her life to save Jewish people during the Holocaust. Although she received many honours later in life, she always remained humble, saying that every child she helped save was simply "the justification of my existence on this Earth."

Irena Sendler died on the 12th of May 2008, at the age of 98. Her courage reminds us that even in humanity's darkest moments, ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference.