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Irena was born in Warsaw, but grew up in the town of Otwock, Poland. |
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Irena was born in 1910. |
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Irena was in charge of the Children's Division of Zegota (a Polish underground group to assist Jewish people). |
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Irena's great grandfather led a rebellion against the Czars. |
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Irena and her helpers made over 3,000 false documents to help Jewish families before she joined Zegota and the children's division. |
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Irena's father was a doctor. Her father died in the typhus epidemic of 1917 when he contacted the disease while caring for poor Jewish people in Otwock. Browse our photo gallery for a photo and information on Irena's mother and father. Photograph number 104 is an excellent photo of her parents. |
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Irena was an only child, but she had a son and a daughter. Her daughter, Janka,still lives in Warsaw, Poland, and her son Adam passed away in 1999 (interestingly enough, the day the Life in a Jar project started on September 23rd). Adam's daughter, Irena's granddaughter Agniesa, is the same age as the girls who started the Life in a Jar project. |
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Irena's nameday is October 20, while her birthday is February 15. |
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From Anna Krzyzewska, who is the daughter of Mrs. Maria Kukulska (Anna’s mother helped care for Irena’s children after they left the Ghetto, before they were placed) : Irena Sendlerowa was not only very active in saving Jewish children but also in resistance against the Germans. "She was frequently at our apartment." |
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Irena used the old courthouse on the edge of the Warsaw Ghetto (still standing) as one of the main routes of smuggling children out. |
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Irena Sendlerowa was a Polish woman who, along with her underground network, rescued 2,500 Jewish children in Poland during World War II. Many of this number were already outside of the Ghetto and in hiding. |
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As early as 1939, when the Germans invaded Warsaw, Irena began helping Jews by offering them food and shelter. |
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When the Warsaw Ghetto was erected in 1940, Irena could no longer help isolated Jews. The Ghetto was an area the size of New York's Central Park and 450,000 Jewish people were forced into this area. |
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Irena first rescued the orphan children from inside the Ghetto. |
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Irena used her papers as a Polish social worker and papers from one of the workers of the Contagious Disease Department (who was a member of the underground Zegota) to enter the Warsaw Ghetto. |
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Irena and the ten who went with her into the ghetto, used many, many methods to smuggle children out. There were five main means of escape: 1- using an ambulance a child could be taken out hidden under the stretcher. 2 - escape through the courthouse. 3 - a child could be taken out using the sewer pipes or other secret underground passages. 4- A trolley could carry out children hiding in a sack, in a trunk, a suitcase or something similar. 5 - if a child could pretend to be sick or was acutally very ill, it could be legally removed using the ambulance. ****Irena did use a dog on occasion, but very few times out of the many rescues. Also, the number of babies saved was small in relation to the total number of children rescued. |
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There was a church next to the ghetto, but the entrance leading to it was "sealed" by the Germans. If a child could speak good Polish and rattle off some Christian prayers it could be smuggled in through the "sealed" entrance and later taken to the Aryan side. This was very dangerous since Germans often used a rouse to trick the Poles and then arrest Jolanta/Irena documented on the strips of paper she had buried, as well as where the child was taken in the first phase of its escape. |
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Irena (code name Jolanta) was arrested on October 20, 1943. When arrested she felt almost liberated. She was placed in the notorious Piawiak prison, where she was constantly questioned and tortured. During the questioning she had her legs and feet fractured. |
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The German who interrogated her was young, very stylish and spoke perfect Polish. He wanted the names of the Zegota leaders, their addresses and the names of others involved. Irena fed him the version that she and her collaborators had prepared in the event they were captured. The German held up a folder with information of places, times and persons who had informed on her. She received a death sentence. She was to be shot. Unbeknown to her, Zegota had bribed the German executioner who helped her escape. On the following day the Germans loudly proclaimed her execution. Posters were put up all over the city with the news that she was shot. Irena read the posters herself. |
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During the remaining years of the war, she lived hidden, just like the children she rescued. Irena was the only one who knew where the children were to be found. When the war was finally over, she dug up the bottles and began the job of finding the children and trying to find a living parent. |
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Almost all the parents of the children Irena saved, died at the Treblinka death camp. |
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"The names of the saved children I wrote down on thin tissue paper. There
were two identical lists in two bottles. When I once have the list at home
the same night Gestapo arrived. Fortunately one of my liaison girls
demonstrated her presence of mind and hid the list in her underwear. After
that for safety reasons I never kept the lists at home. As more children
were saved the bottles were dug up and new names added to the list." Irena Sendler |
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When Irena first heard about the project in Kansas, "I was stunned and fascinated; very, very suprised; interested." In one of Irena's first letters to the girls, she wrote, "My emotion is being shadowed by the fact that no one from the circle of my faithful coworkers, who constantly risked their lives, could live long enough to enjoy all the honors that now are falling upon me.... I can't find the words to thank you, my dear girls.... Before the day you have written the play "Life in a Jar" -- nobody in my own country and in the whole world cared about my person and my work during the war ..." |
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Irena and her network made sure that each family hiding a child realized the child must be returned to Jewish relatives after the war.
Sadly, many of the relatives died in the Holocaust. |
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Irena Sendler was announced as the 2003 winner of the Jan Karski award for Valor and Courage. The announcement was made on July 24, 2003 and the awards ceremony will be on October 23, 2003 in Washington, D.C.
She was nominated by the 'Life in a Jar' students and teacher, and Stefanie Seltzer, President of the World Federation of Jewish Survivors of the Holocaust. |
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'Life in a Jar' started as a National History Day project in September of 1999. Four students (Megan Stewart, Liz Cambers, Sabrina Coons and Jessica Shelton) began looking for information about Irena Sendler. Mr. Conard had given them a clipping he had found in a 1994 issue of U.S. News and World Report. The mention of Irena was in a story called "Other Schindlers." Only one web site on the Internet mentioned Irena, it was not until the students visited Poland in 2001 that Irena's story became known to the world. At last count there were over 80,000 web sites on the Internet mentioning Irena. |
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The students of the 'Life in a Jar' project have gathered over 4,000 pages of primary material and research on the life of Irena Sendler and work of Zegota. |
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Irena's story became known to the world through the Life in a Jar project. The author of the Polish book which features Irena's life story says, "Everybody I talked to in working on this book, said that international and Polish interest in Irena Sendler’s activities was begun and provoked by the activities of the Kansas girls and popularization in the American media." |
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Be careful about Internet facts concerning Irena. snopes.com has much incorrect information. The Life in a Jar cast has done over 4,000 pages and thousands of hours of primary research and interviews.
Timeline:
1910 - Irena born in Otwock, Poland
1939 - World War II begins
1939 - Irena makes false documents for Jewish families
1942- Irena has already started the rescue of children and adults.
1942 - In October of this year, Irena becomes head of Zegota children’s division.
1943 - Around 2,000 children are either taken out of the Ghetto by this time, or are being hidden in the Warsaw area--in orphanages, convents and with families.
1943- Irena caught by the Gestapo
1945 - War ends and communism takes over Poland
1965 - Yad Vashem recognizes Irena as a Righteous Gentile
1983 - Yad Vashem plants tree in her honor
1989 - Communism falls in Poland
1994 - A Zegota film is produced by Bozenna Gilbride
1998 - U.H.S. students complete 40th diversity project
1999 - Girls in Uniontown, KS decide on Irena as a topic for National History Day
September 23, 1999 - The Life in a Jar/Irena Sendler Project begins.
September 23, 1999 - Adam, the forty nine year old son of Irena Sendler, passes away with heart problems.
1999 - Only one web site on net mentions Irena-she is unknown to the world
1999 - Life in a Jar play is written
2000 - Girls find Irena is still alive and start writing her
2000 - Life in a Jar play and Irena Sendler Project continue
2000 - First national and regional press interviews of the girls
May-2001 - Students, parents and the Conards travel to Poland to see Irena
May-2001 - Story of Irena breaks on international press - AP, USAToday, CNN
May 2001 - Survivor calls students “rescuers of Irena’s story for the world.”
March 2002 - Irena Sendler Day in Kansas City
July 2002 - Students take 2nd trip to Poland - 24 interviews
April 2003 - Students begin Irena Sendler and Life in a Jar web site
May 2003 - 3 of the 4 founders of project graduate from high school
May 2003 - Howard and Ro Jacobson begin scholarship program for U.H.S.
October 2003 - Irena receives letter from Pope John Paul II
November 2003 - Irena is recognized by President of Poland
August 2004 - Irena Sendler book published in Poland
November 2004 - 150th presentation of LIAJ
Feb. 2005 - Irena’s 95th birthday
March 2005 - Over 100 schools in U.S. & Poland have developed similar projects.
May 2005 - Students travel to Poland on 3rd trip- see Irena - much press and successful presentations.
June 2005 - Irena Sendler Day in Warsaw
June 2005 - Life in a Jar presents to 200 child survivors in Zakopane, Poland.
August 2005 - Irena Sendler web site reaches 1.5 million hits
April 2006 – The 1st Irena Sendler Award is given in Warsaw
May 2006 – 200th presentation of Life in a Jar in New Bedford, Mass
January 2007 – Irena is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
February 2007 – Life in a Jar makes a DVD of the play in Los Angeles with the help of the Milken Family Foundation.
September 2007 – The Life in a Jar/Irena Sendler Project enters its 9th year.
October 2007 – Megan Stewart-Felt passes 3,000 hours in project.
February 2008 - Irena celebrates her 98th birthday.
March 2008- The cast performs for the 245th time, in Toronto, Canada.
May 12, 2008 - Irena passes away.
May 12, 2008 - Megan Felt, who plays Irena Sendler in Life in a Jar and has a beautiful relationship with Irena, has her 23rd birthday.
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Facts about Irena which are not generally known. All of these are from primary sources.
*When Irena was 13 years old she got in trouble at school for fist-fighting two bullying girls to defend her Jewish classmate.
** When she was 16 years old, in her last year of high school, she was suspended and threatened with expulsion for leaving school to buy a newspaper to share the exciting news of the Gen. Pilsudski insurrection and coup d'etat in 1926. This episode almost threatened her acceptance at the University of Warsaw.
***Before Irena began smuggling children out of the ghetto, she actually smuggled some orphans INTO the ghetto. The Germans had arrested begging children in Aryan Warsaw and Irena realized that some of them were Jewish boys who would be discovered by the "pull down your pants" test to look for circumcised boys. She managed to sneak them away from the Germans and INTO the ghetto through a hole in the wall, where the famous pediatrician, Janus Korczak took them into his orphanage and hid them.
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