Back from my high school reunion and vacation in Little Chicago, and catching up.
Mirah Riben has published a tribute to Irena Sendler, a woman I’d never heardof, but needs to be remembered. Sendler, who died last May, was the last survivor of the Children’s Section of the Zegota Council for Assistance to Jews, which she headed from January 1943 to the end of World War 2. Sendler worked in the Warsaw Ghetto and
smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she also carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.
Captured and tortured by the Nazis, Sendler refused to roll over. She saved 2500 children from certain death. After the war she reunited as many children and families as possible and helped in the adoption of others whose families didn’t survive.
You can read Mirah’s blog with lots of links here. And check out the Life in a Jar Project.
Thanks Mirah, for remembering this extraordinary woman!