Irena Sendler was born in 1910 in Otwock, near Warsaw. Her father, Stanisław Krzyżanowski, "s"was a doctor. He ran a dispensary where he treated the poorest people, mainly Jews whom other doctors refused to see.
When Irena was seven years old, her father died of typhus, contracted from his patients. Before dying, he passed on a phrase to her that she would remember all her life:
« If you see someone drowning, you must jump in to save them, even if you can’t swim. »
A youth marked by the example of his father
Irena grew up watching her mother struggle to provide for the family. She studied Polish literature at the University of Warsaw, but interrupted her studies to help her mother.
She then began working in the social welfare service. Her job seemed perfectly ordinary: she assisted poor families, organized relief efforts, and distributed food.
There was nothing heroic yet in this professional life.
Then war broke out.
The creation of the Warsaw ghetto
In 1940, the Germans created the Warsaw Ghetto. More than 400,000 Jews were confined to a section of a few streets, surrounded by a wall, barbed wire, and armed guards. Anyone who tried to escape risked being shot on the spot.
Living conditions there were unimaginable. Hunger, disease, and overcrowding ravaged the population. Tens of thousands of people died of starvation or typhus. In the streets, children begged, their eyes vacant and their bodies emaciated.
As a social worker, Irena had a pass that allowed her to enter the ghetto to control the spread of disease. She wore an armband adorned with the Star of David so as not to be noticed.
When she first entered, she discovered a reality she could not bear: children were dying in the streets, mothers were begging for a piece of bread, and old people were lying in the gutters.
Irena understood that she had to act.
A plan as simple as it was dangerous
Irena joined Żegota, an underground organization that helped Jews. She then came up with a plan that seemed both simple and insane: to get children out of the ghetto and then place them in Polish families, orphanages or convents.
The risks were immense. Helping Jews was punishable by death. The Germans could execute an entire family for hiding a single child.
Irena was fully aware of the danger. Despite this, she couldn’t stand by and watch the children die.
She began with small actions. When she entered the ghetto, her medical bag concealed food, medicine, and money. She sought out families with young children, approached them, and asked in a low voice:
« Would you be willing to entrust your child to me? »
This was the most painful part of his mission. The parents had to make a decision in a few moments: hand over their child to a stranger without knowing if they would ever see him again, without being certain that he would survive, but knowing that, if he remained in the ghetto, he would almost certainly die.
Most of them agreed.
Children hidden to get over walls
Irena devised numerous methods to get the children out. Some were hidden in toolboxes, others in potato sacks, or in coffins marked « victim of typhus. » The Germans feared this disease and avoided opening the coffins.
She also used ambulances, in which the children were hidden under stretchers. Sometimes she smuggled them through the sewers. On other occasions, she used court buildings, which had passages leading to both sides of the wall.
Irena also had a dog that she had trained to bark on command. When the Germans approached, the animal would start barking to cover up any noises that might reveal the presence of the children.
Every operation could prove fatal. A cry, a cough, or a misplaced glance was enough to condemn all those involved.
Day after day, Irena risked her life.
Preserve the identity of the rescued children
Irena knew that getting the children out of the ghetto was not enough. Once placed in Polish families, orphanages or convents, they received new identities, new first names and new stories.
But she refused to let their true identities disappear along with their former lives. After the war, these children would need to know who they were. They should also be able to find their loved ones, if any had survived.
Irena then began to record all the available information. On small sheets of paper, she noted the children’s real names, their parents’ names, their address, and their origin. She also wrote down their new identities and the place where they had been placed.
She would then enclose these papers in glass jars, which she would bury under an apple tree in the garden of a neighbor on Lekarska Street.
Every day, new names were added to the list. Every day, the number of jars increased.
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