A work about Irena Sendler - a Polish nurse, who during WW2 in Warsaw saved over 2 500 Jewish from ghetto.

1. Irena Sendler (1910-2008)

2. A Polish nurse,
humanitarian, and social
worker who served in the
Polish Underground in
German-occupied Warsaw
during World War II, and
was head of the children's
section of Żegota (the Polish
Council to Aid Jews).

3. Assisted by other Żegota
members, Sendler smuggled
approximately 2,500 Jewish
children out of the Warsaw
Ghetto and then provided them
with false identity documents
and shelter outside the Ghetto,
saving those children from the
Holocaust.

4. Under the pretext of
conducting inspections of
sanitary conditions within the
Ghetto, Sendler and her co-
workers smuggled out babies
and small children, sometimes
in ambulances and trams,
sometimes hiding them in
packages and suitcases, and
using various other means.

5. Jewish children were placed
with Polish Christian families,
the Warsaw orphanage of
the Sisters of the Family of
Mary, or Roman Catholic
convents. Sendler worked
closely with a group of about
30 volunteers, mostly
women.

6. The children were given fake
Christian names and taught
Christian prayers in case they
were tested. She kept careful
documentation listing the
children's fake Christian
names, their given names,
and their current location.
The lists she buried in a jar
under an apple tree.

7. In 1943, Irena Sendler was
arrested by the Gestapo
and severely tortured and
sentenced to death by
firing squad. Żegota saved
her life by bribing the
guards on the way to her
execution.
Irena Sendler in 1942

8. After the war, she and her co-
workers gathered all of the
children's records with the names
and locations of the hidden Jewish
children and gave them to their
Żegota colleague Adolf Berman and
his staff at the Central Committee
of Polish Jews. However, almost all
of the children's parents had been
killed at the German Treblinka
extermination camp or had gone
missing.

9. In 1965, Irena Sendler was
recognized by Yad Vashem as one
of the Polish Righteous among the
Nations and a tree was planted
in her honor at the entrance to
the Avenue of the Righteous.
However, there was no further
public recognition of her wartime
resistance and humanitarian work
until after the end of communist
rule in Poland in 1989.Irena Sendler's tree on the Avenue
of the Righteous at Yad Vashem in Israel.

10. In 1991, Irena Sendler
was made an honorary
citizen of Israel.
In 2007, she was
nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize.
Irena Sendler with some people she saved as children,
Warsaw, 2005

11. A newspaper story about the death of Irena Sendler.

12. A film about Irena Sendler was made in 2009.

13. True stories from WW2
June 2017
Drawings by Karina Galińska i Karolina Stasiuk
Pictures from wikimedia.org
Szkoła Podstawowa nr 9 im. Mikołaja Kopernika
Dzierżoniów, Poland