Irena Sendler, Feb. 13, 2005. Photo used by permission of Mariusz Kubik.

Sendler was horrified by what she encountered on a daily basis, and took matters into her own hands.

One such real life heroine died last year without much notice. Her name was Irena Sendler (Irena Sendlerowa in Polish) and when she passed on at the age of 98 on May 12, 2008, it was the end of a truly extraordinary and heroic life. For those who have not heard of her, Irena Sendler was a social worker in Warsaw during World War II who saved the lives of 2,500 (and possibly as many as 3,000) Jewish children who would have otherwise perished from starvation, disease or in a Nazi gas chamber.

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Oskar Schlinder, who was made famous by Stephen Spielberg in the film Schlinder’s List, saved approximately 1,100 Jews, yet Irena Sendler, who saved far more, was barely known outside of Poland. Although her story finally began to come to light a few years ago after a dedicated group of high school students in Uniontown, Kansas learned of her story and wrote a play called Life in a Jar, I doubt much was known about her here in the United States until Sunday, April 19, when CBS television aired a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation called The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler.

Taught by her parents to always do the right thing, Sendler, whose maiden name was Irena Krzyzanowska, was born in 1910 in Otwock, a town fifteen miles southeast of Warsaw. The only child of a physician who was one of the first Polish Socialists, her father exerted a strong influence on her, in no small part for his compassion for his patients, most of whom were Jewish poor he treated. He died from typhus when she was nine, a disease he probably contracted from one of his patients. The lesson she learned growing up that was instilled in young Irena was that one person in this world can indeed make a difference, just as her father had done by example.

When the Nazis occupied Poland in 1939 she was a senior administrator in the Social Welfare Department of Warsaw. Her work of providing for the poor and downtrodden brought her in contact with Jews who faced increasing deprivation and persecution.

By 1942 the Nazis had walled off a sixteen-square block area of the city that earned the infamous name of the Warsaw Ghetto, where some 5,000 people a month died from disease and starvation rations that were not enough to sustain life. Unable by virtue of her job to gain access to the Ghetto, Sendler successfully passed herself off as a nurse.

Granted access to bring food, medicine and clothing, Sender was horrified by what she encountered on a daily basis, and took matters into her own hands by smuggling Jewish children from the Ghetto, often past the very noses of the Germans. Her mission became saving what children she could. Not only did she face the problem of removing them from the Warsaw Ghetto, she also had the difficult task of persuading reluctant parents to let her take their children, knowing that the chances were high that they would never see them again – but that if they remained they would not survive. As a parent, I cannot imagine a more difficult or heart-wrenching choice. Moreover, a great many Orthodox Jews objected to the fact that their children would have to become (temporary) Christians in order to survive. Yet, the awful choice was either to let their children go or condemn them to certain death. The question often asked of Sendler was if she could guarantee they would live. All she could do was to tell the parents that she could guarantee they would die if they did not. A steady stream of children were successfully spirited to safety and given new identities.

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