News – Irena Sendler - a Polish social worker who helped save some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and giving them false identities - has died. She was 98.
This is a marvellous story. I heard it on the BBC and wanted to post it but TE beat me to it.
The AP version misses some quite significant details of the story which can also be found here:
http://www.topnews.in/polish-world-war-ii-heroi...
Sendlerowa was part of the Zegota resistance movement. Together with a group of 20 helpers, she smuggled 2,500 children out of the Warsaw Ghetto in ambulances, through sewers and once under her skirt.
She then obtained forged identity cards for them and hid the children with foster families, at monasteries and orphanages.
"Irena Sendlerowa rescued the future of the Jewish people," Piotr Kadlcik, the head of the Jewish Community in Poland, told Radio Information Agency (IAR).
Sendlerowa made a coded list of the children's names, which she hid in her cellar, in the hope of reuniting them with their families after the war.
She was later arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, but never gave details of the resistance movement's work nor did she reveal the children's names.
**************
In another version of the story she buried the jar of names under an apple tree in her garden.
Her bravery was exceptional and it has to be stated that there was not much sympathy in the Polish population for the Jews.
Her action is similar in merit to that of Oskar Schindler and the less well-known story of Nicholas Winton who saved almost 700 Czech children by sending them to England by train.
http://www.auschwitz.dk/Winton.htm
He was later knighted and a film was also made about him. I had the honour of attending a ceremony in his honour in Prague when he was reunited for the first time with some of "his" children.
And was not Oskar Schindler honoured by the Jewish State by putting his name in the "Walk of Life" i think it is called? If so will or is this woman also honoured in such a way.....she truly deserves it
In 2006, Poland and Israel recommended Sendlerowa for the Nobel Peace Prize and the latter awarded her the title "Righteous Among the Nations".
Last year, the Polish parliament passed a unanimous resolution honouring her for organizing the "rescue of the most defenceless victims of the Nazi ideology - the Jewish children."
[from the "topnews" story which I referenced above.]
Christianity has lost a true follower of Jesus Christ...
Shadow:
When people like her die they are not lost. I believe she is in heaven. She will return with the Lord.
But you are right we lost one strong and devoted lady.
For the love of children she suffered much. I'm sure she will be rewarded with much.
For those who tortured her. Well I hope they repented because I would not want to face God with that sin.
This is an inspirational story, gama, and a fine thing to put on the board.
I'm sure this wonderful lady is honored by name along the "Avenue of Righteous Gentiles" which leads up to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem -- and examples like hers would help greatly in helping to temper the after-effects of the awful horrors depicted inside.
(Apologies again for my extremely unfortunate "neg" which sullies the opening comment, by Oscar, on this very serious thread).
It was TE's story - I just hitched a ride on it..
It was certainly my inspiration for the day.
As for your neg of Oscar - I figured that you were following a Japanese example..
I can't remember exactly how its defined but its something about perfection always needing to have some tiny flaw so as not to be pre-empting the Buddha..
SOMETHING like that!
Can you re-enlighten me on that??
Thanks for the understanding on the fumble-fingers, gama.
That's an interesting point you make on the 'perfection' thing. But I learned of that in the context of Persian carpet makers, of old. The makers would always make one deliberate error on their fantastically woven rugs, with the rationale that to make something knowingly perfect would be an afront to God, er Allah, in their case, but the same entity, whatever.
In years & years residence here, I've not met this concept (though of course, this doesn't mean it doesn't exist somewhere in the vast store of Buddhist scriptures).
Would that such hero's existed in today's society!
They do, they do!
Anyone of us can be one of them too..
The more hidden they are the more glorious..
Jesus had some interesting words on that topic.
Perhaps someone can quite chapter and verse but the idea is that when you do "good" it should be private and inconspicuous.
By the very nature of what she did, of course, our heroine HAD to remain as invisible as possible.
The Holocaust displayed the worst and the best in humankind. While the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis were evil incarnate, the pure goodness of people like Sendlerowa and a few others like her, Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who rescued 2,100 Lithuanian Jews, the Muslims who saved 200 Albanian Jews, and many others..these people display the finest of humankind who risked their lives to save the lives of others for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.
Well said Georgia!!!
Her courage enable all people from Propeller to join in a tribute to her. I was standing in front of the statute honoring Anne Frank, in Amsterdam, on 09/11 when it was reported that the north tower had been rammed by a jet.
OK, fellow Americans, and I cried there...
PS: How many here know that the assets of Preston Bush was frozen when learning he was laundering monies intended for Hitler and the Nazi regime? If you differ in opinion, please read your damned history books and stop hiding Bush and his act of treason upon the people of America, and the world!!!
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We hear of compassion, courage, humanity, and caring, but sometimes our words are inadequate to describe what is best about the human spirit. So it is that we cannot find words that are sufficient to relate our gratitude for this simple woman, and our awe of what she was able to accomplish.
"In 1965, Sendler became one of the first so-called Righteous Gentiles honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for wartime heroics. Poland's communist leaders at that time would not allow her to travel to Israel; she collected the award in 1983."
Rest, Noble Spirit! We are gladdened that God loved us enough to let you live among us!
I was so carried away by the excellence of this comment, 1-2-Oscar, that I foolishly hit the "neg" button. Utterly accidental & my apologies.
No problem. When I receive a negative vote for post like this one, I always assume that either Goppy or Tessylo has visited the thread.
I don't think that you will ever receive negative votes from anyone for superlative comments like your opening remark, Oscar.
This second one already pushes the envelope in a different direction.
Of course you did receive one to your 1st comment - I should have specified intentional!
Al Gore got her Nobel Prize.
In the overall scheme of things, I certainly would have chosen her over Gore, too.
I guess there are a couple of guys who think that a political demagogue is more worthy of support than an actual human rights activist who evaded death at the hands of the Nazis. She was nominated for the prize that he got and it was a travesty. Now it's too late to say "thank you" to her. On behalf of the human race, damn the Nobel Committee!