Holocaust era heroine, Irena Sendler, dies
Irena Sendler, a Polish catholic, is a true heroine who saved the lives of
2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust, died on 12 May 2008 at the age
of 98. Sendler smuggled thousands of Jewish children out of the Warsaw
Ghetto between October 1940 and April 1943.
Along with a team of about twenty volunteers she was able to rescue the
children by carrying them out in suitcases, boxes, body bags, tool boxes and
coffi ns. She gave them new identities and placed them with adoptive
parents.
She hid the records that revealed their true identities in glass jars buried
behind her neighbours home. Although captured by the Nazis and tortured, she
protected the Jewish children and her team of aids. In 1965 she was named by
Yad Vashem as Righteous
Among the Nations. She also was made an honorary Israeli citizen and
nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last year. She has received a number of
other prestigious international recognitions.
Her story was largely unknown until a group of Kansas high school students
wrote a play, Life in a Jar, about her heroism. Irena Sendler, a hero in the
truest sense, was quoted in the past saying, "I could have done more...This
regret will follow me to my death."
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