International Womens Day Tribute Five

As the more enlightened of you might know the 8^th of March is International Women’s days. In honour of this, I will be writing a small article about 7 women whom I believe should be celebrated more for their achievements, and then posting one article each day in the week proceeding the 8^th of March. Now some of you might know a lot more about the subjects then I do, which is all well and good, remember these are women I believe should be more celebrated because I haven’t heard about them a lot. As the articles will be brief I ask you to look up more on these extraordinary women yourself.

Name: Irena Sendler aka Jolanta

Born: 15 February 1910

Died: 12 May 2008

From: Poland

Should be known more for: Saving almost 2500 Jewish children from the Nazis

Irena Krzyzanowska was born just outside of Warsaw in the town of Otwock, to a local doctor who died when his daughter was merely 7 years old. Though little is known of her early life we do know that she studied at the University of Warsaw and was a member of the Polish Socialist Party. When World War 2 broke out, the now married Irena Sendler was living in Warsaw working for the Social Services. From the start Sendler worked hard trying to protect the Jewish people of the city from the occupying Nazis. Providing them with necessities and sheltering them, under false names and often marking them down as suffering from diseases to prevent inspections from the gestapo.

When the Nazis started rounding up the Jewish people and imprisoning them into the Warsaw Ghetto, Sendler joined the Polish resistance movement Zegota, taking the code name Jolanta. Using her position in the social service Sendler would enter the ghetto and see the appalling conditions first-hand.  Knowing that she had to do something about this, Sendler recruited help from within and without the social services, to help rescue children from inside the ghetto and then have them placed in safe locations outside. She also kept meticulous records of the children, so that hopefully they may one day be reunited with their families. She buried the records (almost 2500 of them) in a jar, as not to have them fall into the wrong hands.

In October 1943 having caught onto her, Sendler was arrested by the gestapo and tortured severely, so severely in fact that it would cripple her for life. She did not break however and neither revealed any of her associates nor the locations of any of the children. Due to be killed by firing squad Sendler was rescued by the Zegota who bribed the guards, and had her reported as executed. She spent the rest of the war in hiding but still working with Jewish children. After the war she passed all her records to Zegota so that the children could be reunited with their families.