Sendler, Irena

(1910–2008)

   Sendler was a Polish Catholic social worker in German-occupied Poland. A member of the Polish Council for Aid to the Jews (Zegota), she helped alleviate the suffering of numerous Jews. Because she worked for the Social Welfare Department of the Warsaw municipality, Sendler had access to the Warsaw ghetto, where she provided Jews with money, medicine, and clothing. Identifying with the plight of the suffering Jews she encountered, Sendler wore the yellow Star of David armband as a symbol of solidarity with the Jewish people when she walked the streets of the ghetto. Her most dangerous activity in behalf of the Jews, however, was in smuggling Jewish children out of the ghetto and placing them with non-Jewish families. In the course of her commitment to save Jewish children, she at one time oversaw eight apartments where Jews were in hiding under her care. In 1943, when the Germans became suspicious of her activity, she was arrested by the Gestapo and jailed in the Pawiak prison, where she was brutally tortured. She survived her ordeal and, on her release from prison, Sendler continued her work with Zegota until the end of the German occupation. In 1965, she was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous amongst the Nations.”