Irena Sendler
Righteous Gentile
Irena Sendler
(Sendlerowa)
•
Born in 1910
•
Catholic Social Worker
Used fake ID to pose as a
nurse to enter the walled off
ghetto
•
Convinced parents to hand
over their children for safer
placement in a non-Jewish
family
•
1965 – The Righteous Among
the Nations
•
2007 – nominated for Nobel
Peace Prize
•
•
Died May 12, 2008
http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/viewer/wlc/photo.php?RefId=89130
Council for Aid to
Jews
•
Part of the Polish
underground
resistance
movement
organized by Zofia
Kossak-Szczucka
•
Both worked to
save the lives of
the Jewish people
despite threats
from the Nazi
Government.
•
Zegota
http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/19762?hr=null
http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/20047?hr=null
http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/1917?hr=null
The Polish
Underground
Resistance
Movement helped to
issue thousands of
fake identification
cards to the Jewish
people to help them
escape the atrocities
of the ghetto and the
concentration camps.
Fake Identification Card
http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/258?hr=null

From 1942 to 1943
2,500 Jewish babies
and young children
were rescued from the
Warsaw Ghetto by
Irena Sendler with the
help of the Polish
Underground
Resistance Movement.
Rescued
http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/1570?hr=null
Before the War
After the War
Religious Changes



Caught by the
Gestapo in 1943
Spent 3 months in
captivity
undergoing
interrogation and
torture
Refused to give up
information and was
sentenced to death
Captured


A guard in the
Pawiak Prison was
bribed by the Polish
Resistance
Movement and
Irena was freed
She spent the rest
of the war in hiding
After the war, Irena
began to try and
reunite all of the
2500 children in the
jar with their families.
 Irena and her work
were all but forgotten
until her story was
discovered by a
group of high school
students in 1999.

Life in a Jar