A Woman of Resistance

Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker, served as an aid in the Polish Underground during World War II. At the time when Germany invaded Poland and the Nazis began to murder Jews. During World War II, Irena Sendler was an activist in the Polish Underground and the Zegota Polish anti-Holocaust resistance in Warsaw. It may be an unfamiliar name to most, but this remarkable Polish woman resisted against the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto in during the Holocaust.

In 1942, the Nazis rounded up thousands of Jews into a small 16-block area that became known as the Warsaw Ghetto filled with Jewish families, just waiting to see what would happen next (Who We Are). Irena Sendler was so devastated by the conditions that she joined Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, and became head of Zegota's Children's Bureau. It was organized by the Polish underground resistance movement as one of its first organizations to rescue Jewish children.

Sendler got a pass from Warsaw's Epidemic Control Department to be able to visit the Ghetto daily; she established contacts and helped the Jews with food and clothing. Nonetheless, 5,000 people died from starvation and disease in the Ghetto each month. "Soon after the invasion, approximately 450,000 Jews were packed into a tiny section of the city and barricaded behind seven-foot-high walls" (Who We Are).

On April 19, 1943, the Nazis began what they expected would be a rapid liquidation of the ghetto. It took them more than a month to clear out the Warsaw ghetto revolution. "These are cultured people. We're almost 500,000 in this Ghetto; what could they do?" (The Courageous Heart). After a couple weeks, about 55,000 out of 500,000 Jews were still alive; most of them were sent to death camps. Sendler decided to help the Jewish children escape the horrifying conditions of the camp. Sendler started smuggling children out in ambulances and other ways. She then found families willing to shelter the children. With the help of her coworkers, she distributed hundreds of false documents with forged signatures. Irena Sendler successfully snuck out 2,500 or more Jewish children to safety and gave them temporary new identities. Irena said, "I still hear the cries when they left their parents" (Who We Are). It was extremely hard for the parents of the children but it had to be done. The children were given false identities and placed in homes, orphanages and convents. Irena Sendler wanted to keep track of the children so she wrote the children's true identities and kept them safe in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's back yard. This is known as "Life in a Jar" which is now a play presented by the children in a Kansas school who found out about what Irena Sendler and what she did for the children of the Warsaw ghetto. She hoped of seeing the children that where saved and let them know of the past.

In October 20, 1943, the Nazis found out what Irena was doing so the Gestapo arrested, imprisoned, and tortured her. "Irena