When Irene Sendler was only seven years old, her father died of typhus, but in the short time she lived with him he influenced her and made her follow in his footsteps.
Her father had been a doctor, Irena became a nurse and provided food and clothing for poor families. At that time, Europe was strongly anti-Semitic, but Irena, being a fervent Catholic, helped everyone equally.
For this reason, the Nazis sentenced her to death, but fate had other plans for her. With the help of a bribe given by a soldier, she managed to escape. From that moment on, she will live for years under a false identity – but she will never stop helping those in need.
She went down in history for rescuing 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto, giving them false identities, and helping them escape and survive the Holocaust. Apart from some diplomats, she is the one who saved most Jews during the Holocaust.
When the war was over, Irena dug up the documents of all the children and people she had saved, put them in jars and buried them in the ground, then handed them over to the Committee of Surviving Jews.
Here is what she confesses: “The reason why I saved these children has its origin in my house and in my childhood. I was educated to have the belief that a helpless person must be helped wholeheartedly, without looking at religion or nationality.”
