Irena Sendler in 1944 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Winning the Nobel Prize is a remarkable achievement. \u00a0But sometimes . . . \u00a0umm, well, mistakes are made. \u00a0Here\u2019s a possible example:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the Second World War, Irena Sendler, a Polish Roman Catholic, received permission from the Nazi occupation authorities to travel into and out of the Warsaw ghetto as a plumbing and sewer specialist.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an odd specialty for a woman who was a social worker by training.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
German officials were concerned about a possible outbreak of typhus in the ghetto, not (of course) because of any solicitude for Jews but because they feared that it might spread to the city at large. \u00a0Social workers weren\u2019t permitted into the ghetto, but Sendler obtained fake credentials as a nurse. \u00a0Thereafter, while conducting sanitary inspections, Sendler and at least two associates brought medicines and hygienic items to the essentially imprisoned Jewish population and smuggled clothing, food, and other necessities to the ghetto\u2019s population.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
After October 1943, Sendler headed the children\u2019s section of the \u201cKonrad \u017begota Committee,\u201d an underground resistance organization that was also called\u00a0the \u201cPolish Council to Aid\u00a0Jews.\u201d \u00a0Her\u00a0code name was \u201cJolanta.\u201d \u00a0She smuggled Jewish infants out of the ghetto in the bottom of the plumbing toolbox that she carried back and forth. \u00a0She also brought a burlap sack in the back of her truck that she used for transporting larger kids.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sender kept a dog in the back of truck, as well. \u00a0She had trained it to bark whenever she neared the Nazi soldiers stationed at the ghetto\u2019s checkpoints. Those soldiers, of course, rapidly wearied of the noisy dog, which hastened her passage through the checkpoints, and the barking served to cover up any noises that the children might make.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s estimated that at least 300,000 Jews from the ghetto were killed, either within the Ghetto itself or in the extermination camps at Treblinka and elsewhere. \u00a0That\u2019s a terrible toll. \u00a0Still, operating with others, Irena Sendler managed to smuggle out and save 2500 Jewish children. \u00a0She and her associates gave them forged identity papers and lodged them with Polish Christian families, in orphanages, and with nuns in Catholic convents. \u00a0They were given Christian names and taught Christian prayers, so that, if they were ever questioned, their false identities would be convincing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultimately, though, Sendler was caught, and the Nazis broke both of her legs and arms, beat her severely, sent her to a labor camp, and sentenced her to death. \u00a0But she never gave up any information to her interrogators. \u00a0And the\u00a0Konrad \u017begota Committee managed to secure her freedom on the very day scheduled for her execution, by bribing her guards as she was actually on her way to the firing squad.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sender kept records, sometimes in glass jars that she buried under a tree in her backyard, of the names of all the children she had smuggled out, including both their actual names and the new identities that had been given to them. \u00a0She tossed one list of names to a close friend, Janina Grabowska, on the day of her arrest while the Gestapo were distracted with searching her house. \u00a0After the war, she tried to locate any parents who might have survived and she attempted to reunite those children with their families. \u00a0She felt it her responsibility to preserve each child\u2019s Jewish identity.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, most of those family members had been gassed at Treblinka or had disappeared (perhaps in the Warsaw Uprising that occurred in Summer 1944). \u00a0So the majority of the kids that Sendler and her network had saved were necessarily either placed with foster families or adopted.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2007, Irena Sendler was nominated by the government of Poland for the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But she wasn\u2019t selected.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead, Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Irena Sendler was nominated again in 2008, but a Finnish politician by the name of Martti Ahtisaari took the prize. That was the year in which she died, in Warsaw, at the age of ninety-eight.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Winning the Nobel Prize is a remarkable achievement. \u00a0But sometimes . . . \u00a0umm, well, mistakes are made. \u00a0Here\u2019s a possible example: \u00a0 During the Second World War, Irena Sendler, a Polish Roman Catholic, received permission from the Nazi occupation authorities to travel into and out of the Warsaw ghetto as a plumbing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1670,1652,1582,3676,1649,4595,4597],"class_list":["post-73015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-holocaust","tag-irena-sendler","tag-jews","tag-nazi","tag-nobel-prize","tag-poland","tag-warsaw"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>