The ?schindler? No One Knew

[ImWithStupid]

The following is the amazing story of Irena Sendler of Poland, age 97

In September 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker employed by Warsaw?s social-welfare department. An only child, she had been just 7 when her father, a Catholic doctor, contracted typhus and died after treating Jews during a 1917 typhus outbreak. But she never forgot his sacrifice. "I was taught that if a man is drowning, it is irrelevant what is his religion or nationality," Sendler has said. ?One must help him. It is a need of the heart.?

 

In the fall of 1940, Sendler watched as the Nazis forced 350,000 Jews inside the Warsaw ghetto, a 16-square-block area that was walled off and guarded. With each passing month of the war, the torment of the people locked inside intensified. They were dying of starvation and disease while unknowingly waiting for the Nazis to herd them into freight cars that would ultimately take them to their deaths in the gas chambers.

 

Sendler joined Zegota, the code name for the Council for Aid to Jews in Occupied Poland, an underground network founded in December 1942 by psychologist Adolf Berman and six other prominent scholars, religious leaders, and social activists. The secret organization, which forged thousands of birth certificates and other documents to give Jews safe Aryan identities, asked Sendler to head up their operation to smuggle Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto.

 

But first she had to get inside. Because the Nazis were on guard against the spread of infections, they allowed the delivery of medicine inside the Ghetto. A Zegota member working inside the Polish disease department forged a permit that allowed Sendler to work undercover as a nurse inside the ghetto. Her code name was Jolanta.

 

With the help of 10 ?messenger friends,? as Sendler called her colleagues, and dozens of volunteers, she organized the effort to sneak the children to orphanages, convents, and private homes in the Warsaw region. Children who were old enough to talk were taught to rattle off Christian prayers and mimic other religious behavior (such as how to make the sign of the cross) so they could live safely without arousing suspicion of their Jewish heritage. Sendler and Zegota devised several routes for smuggling children out of the ghetto. Kids escaped on foot or in the arms of volunteers through sewer pipes or basements with underground passageways. Many also escaped through the courthouse, which had entrances on both the ghetto side and Aryan side. Other methods were more inventive. For instance, a trolley driver and Zegota member, when crossing from the ghetto to the Aryan side, hid little ones in trunks, suitcases, or sacks under his back seat, where the Nazi guards could no not see. Another supporter, an ambulance driver, kept his dog beside him in the front seat and trained him to bark to camouflage any cries or noises from the babies hidden under stretchers in back. Sendler also arranged for babies and children to be sedated and smuggled out with merchants in potato sacks, under their loads of goods. Sometimes, she even sneaked sedated children out in body bags, telling the guards that they were dead.

 

Day after day, for about 16 months, Sendler persuaded parents and grandparents to hand over their babies and children, to give them a chance to live. ?There were terrible scenes,? Sendler says. ?One mother & I wanted a child to leave the ghetto while the father did not. They asked what was the guarantee? What kind of guarantee could I give them?? She couldn?t even guarantee that she could get past the guards.

On slips of tissue paper, Sendler recorded the identity of every child she rescued.

 

Whenever possible, she wrote down the child?s Jewish name as well as the child?s new Christian name and new address. Sendler buried these names in jars under an apple tree in a friend?s garden. After the war, Sendler hoped, the children would be located and their Jewish identities revealed to them.

 

On Oct. 20, 1943, the Gestapo arrested Sendler. They had long suspected she was running a smuggling operation, and one of her messengers had been caught and tortured until she gave up Sendler?s name and home address. The Gestapo interrogated Sendler, demanding information about the identities of the other rescuers and the children in hiding. But she refused to talk, even when she was beaten until her legs and feet were broken. ?I was quiet as a mouse,? Sendler has said. ?I would have rather died than disclose anything about our operations.? She was then taken to Pawiak prison, where she was sentenced to be executed. At the last minute, however, the woman who had rescued so many others was herself rescued. On the day she was to be executed, Zegota paid a hefty bribe to a guard, who allowed Sendler to escape. The guard subsequently posted Sendler?s name on public bulletin boards as one of the executed, essentially rendering her invisible to the Nazis. She then went in to hiding in Poland, just like the children she?d saved.

 

When Poland was liberated a year and three months later, in January of 1945, Sendler returned to the friend?s garden and dug up the jars. She turned over the rescued children?s names to Zegota?s Berman, and he and other members of the group tried to locate the children?s foster families.

 

Sadly, most of the children had no parents or grandparents to be found. Less than 1 percent of the Jews inside the ghetto survived the war, most having perished at the Treblinka death camp in northeast Poland. After the war, Sendler married, raised two children of her own, and continued her career as a social worker in Warsaw. The beatings she had suffered at the hands of the Gestapo left her permanently disabled and she has had trouble walking ever since. But, she never talked openly about her rescue work. Poland was under a communist regime, and the postwar climate wasn?t safe. For almost 60 years, her story was essentially lost to history.

 

Irene Sendler was one of Al Gore?s co-nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Sure ? she didn?t properly capitalize monetarily from her deeds. Sure ? she didn?t become a pop icon. But, she did save 2500 Jewish kids from Nazi extermination. Does that count? Nah ? films about global warming ? that?s what?s it?s all about!!

 

Irene Sendler died on May 12th 2008.

 

?What I did was not extraordinary. It was a normal thing to do.? ~ Irene Sendler

This is who Al Gore beat out for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

[snafu]

That's aggravating as hell!

[RegisteredAndEducated]

Garbage. The people who decide who gets the prize and who doesnt need to be re-examined. What a joke. How do you give the 'peace' prize to someone who's scientifically incorrect over someone who saves hundreds of lives?

[Old Salt]

In recent years, the Nobel Peace Prize has been totally politicized. Jimmy Carter... OMG, JIMMY CARTER!... was awarded the prize. What has he done besides turning the US Embassy in Tehran over to religious zealots? The reason (IMO) is that he is the first president in US history to mean-mouth a fellow president and criticize a sitting president.

[ImWithStupid]

There is a two hour tv movie about Irene Sendler on tonight. It started at 8. I didn't know it was on until now.

[RoyalOrleans]

If that murdering Yassir Arafat could be awarded the prize ... then it can't be all that much of an honor.

[emkay64]

I saw a documentary about her. It was really sad and she was incredibly brave. Annoying as the recipients of the prize can be...I'm not surprised at all....sadly.

[snafu]

Simon, Paula and Randy would do better at judging for the Nobel.