UNSUNG HEROINE

IRENA SENDLER

PRESENTED BY: ADE KOZA(KUTU)

1910-2008 “As long as i live, as long i have strenght, i will profess that the most important thing is goodness”

Irena sendler The mother of the children of the holocaust

about her:

IRENA SENDLER (polish angel)

also known as : (Irena sendlerowa, Irena stanislawaw krzyanowska, Irena Krzyanowaska,or Jolanta) born in: 15th february 1910 in otwock poland,

to a Roman Catholic family, Dr.Stanislaw Krzyanowska and Jenina.

EARLY HISTORY : ➨ Her father Dr.stanislaw Krzyzanowskwi, a physician died in february 1917 from typhus contracted while treating his jews patients.And after her father died, the jewish community leaders helped her mother janina in support for her education.she studied in polish literature in warsaw university and joined Polish Socialist Party.

FAMILY LIFE: ➨ she was married to Mieczyslaw Sendler , but then divorced in 1947 and married to Stefan Zgrzembski, a jewish friend from her university days. ➨ They had three children ,janina,Andrzej(who died in infancy)and Adam(who died of heart failure in 1999). ➨ She then divorced Zgrzembski in 1959,and remarried her first husband,Mieczyslaw Sendler.This rematch also failed. ➨ She lived in Warsaw for the rest of her life and survived by her daughter,janina”janka” Zgrzembska.

Her roles: ➨ she a polish social worker who rescued some 2,500 jewish children from the warsaw ghetto during world war II. ➨Sendler become (1942) a member of Zegota(council toAid the jewish )the polish undergrou--nd organisation established to help save jews from the Nazi occupier. ➨ She used such creative means as coffins and am-bulances to remove children to safety, supplied them with fate birth certificate with Aryans names, placed them in sympathetic christian orphanages and convents.

➨ she buried jars containing list of their real names for future reference.

cont.. ➨ she was capture and tortured (1943) by Nazis, ➨Sendler refused to reveal with whom she worked and names of those she saved. ➨Although sentence to death, she escaped when other Zegota members bribed Gastapo officers to free her.

challenges:

personal; ➨ irena’s father passed away when she was seven, due to infection of typhus while treating his patients.. ➨ she was against the segregation rules set against the jewish in her university, where her protest and rebellion led to three years suspension from the school. ➨she managed to complete her graduate by sept. 1939, just before second world war began, but continued to opposed till the end.

cultural; ➨ As a social worker her practice began by offering shelter and supplies to families of in need of assistance,mainly the jewish family as the segregation laws on jewish had turn to restriction ,deprivation and finally decimation. ➨ As the war progressed, and the nazism took over, irena social work job shifted from being a government assistant to an undercover figure opposing the new regime. ➨Irena’s official job, as far as the Nazi government was concerned,was a sanitation engineer. Her true work however, was smuggling jewish children out of the Ghetto and away from the harm of the Nazi regime. ➨she was caught and tortured,starved and beaten, she nearly died in capture.

cont... ➨ After escaping, she no longer able to go directly into the Ghetto to help as before, but she continued to help the Zegota social work offices until the end of the war, aiding placing children into safe hiding places. ➨Despite the danger to herself, Irena believed her aid in saving the children was more important than her own safety. ➨Saving others from terror of the Nazi regime was her justification for living, and she was willing to die for it.

virtues: ➡ Irena Sendler exhibited many virtues through her work in aiding others, but perhaps none more than courage. ➡ Irena was courageous enough to stand for her belief in the face of cultural pressure and threat of death. ➡ She put thousands of lives before her own with a grace and the fire that is difficult to match. ➡ When she was arrested and tortured for information, she remained silent and defiant, preferring to be mutilated in body rather than endanger her charges.

cont...

➡ After she escaped execution, she did not retired and go into hiding, but instead continued her work until well after the war. ➡ Irena had the courage to put thousands of strangers before herself, for the love of humanity and goodness.

awards:‘order of smile’ (2007)

‘Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta’(1996)

‘Commander’s Cross with Star of Order of Polonia Restituta’(2001)

cont..

➨IN 1965 Yad Vashem,Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, recognised Sendler as Righteous Among the Nations for her action during the war.

’➨ the Order of the White Eagle ‘(2003) Poland’s highest honour.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED:➨when you have a zeal there is nothing impossible. ➨you can’t be determine by what other says or sees in you. ➨COURAGE , when you have courage nothing stands in your way.➨Happiness comes through will serving.

“only a life lived in the service of others is worth living”

conclusion:➨This lovely, courageous woman was one of the most dedicated and active workers in aiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

➨ irena sendler passed away on 12th may, 2008 at the age of 98 in warsaw, poland.

referrence:

⇨http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/939081/jewish/Irena-Sendler.htm ⇨http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler⇨www.auschwitz.dk/sendler.htm⇨http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1441779/Irena-Sendler

thank you..