In 1942, Irena Stanisława Sendler (née Krzyżanowska), also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, nom de guerre Jolanta (15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008), was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw.
She initiated the smuggling of Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safety. She operated independently, utilizing a network of concealed passages and confidential connections. Irena provided them with false identity documents, food, and shelter. She smuggled the children willing Polish families or into orphanages and other care facilities, including Catholic nun convents, saving those children from the Holocaust.
Throughout a span of two years, Irena managed to save more than 2,500 children, granting them new identities and relocating them to Catholic families or convents.
She meticulously documented the identity of each child, with the hope of reuniting them with their families post-war. in October 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo, but she managed to hide the list of the names and locations of the rescued Jewish children, preventing this information from falling into the hands of the Gestapo.
Withstanding torture and imprisonment, Sendler never revealed anything about her work or the location of the saved children. She was sentenced to death but narrowly escaped on the day of her scheduled execution. Irena’s courage and altruism led to her being known as “The Angel of the Warsaw Ghetto.”
Irena died on May 12, 2008, aged 98, and is buried in Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery. If you found this interesting, the full story is available online and there is much more to it!
Irena’s narrative serves as a poignant illustration of bravery and empathy in the midst of immense adversity.
