“I could have done more. This regret will follow me to my death,” stated Irena Sendler, even after she sacrificed her own life to save thousands of impoverished Jewish children from the Holocaust (“An Unsung Heroine”). Irena Sendler was born on February 25th, 1910 in Otwock, Poland, and died on May 12, 2008 in Warsaw, Poland (“Family & Cast”). Many know her as an excellent and fearless woman for her efforts during World War II. Her childhood and family, role in the Holocaust, and the awards she has won are all crucial parts in her life that have made her who she is today. Starting with her childhood and family, Irena grew up in Otwock, Poland. During her adolescence, her father, Stanisław Krzyżanowski greatly influenced her. Her father was …show more content…
Irena got a pass from Warsaw’s Epidemic Control Department, which allowed her to legally visit the Ghetto daily. Then, between 1942-1943, she snuck children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safe hiding places, and found non-Jewish families to adopt them. The youth only knew Irena by her code name “Jolanta”. She had to persuade many parents to part from their children, which was a very difficult and dreadful task. Irena later recalls, “In my dreams, I still hear the cries when they left their parents.” Her procedure to get the children out was very risky, but Irena stoutly refused to give in. The children were smuggled out in peculiar ways that included being put in gunnysacks, body bags, potato sacks, and coffins. A mechanic would even take a baby in his toolbox. Next, she put all of the children in an ambulance, which then took them to homes, orphanages, or convents. Priests and high-ranking officials in the Social Services Department signed the counterfeit Catholic birth certificates and identity papers. With the help of the Social Welfare Department, “…she issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures and successfully smuggled almost 2,500 Jewish children to safety and gave them temporary new identities,” (“Irena Sendler”). Sendler and the Polish Resistance would teach the kids Catholic prayers and how
The Germans were deporting 5 to 10 thousand Jews a day at the Umschlagplatz. Were the Jews would be tightly packed in cattle cars and shipped off to death camps like treblinka were they would be sent to labor or the gas chambers were you executed. Death camps would try to hide what’s really going on. The death camps would say turn in all your valuables so you can be delouced but what they really are doing is sending you to your death.People that are war profiteers would sell some of the valuables that were collected at the death camps. So Irena was terrified when they started deportation she was afraid that all the kids that she put in the orphanage in the ghetto. Several days after wards there was tremence fire fights that broke out all over the ghetto. So Irena sprung into action thinking that the Germans would be distracted from all the fighting so that Irena can smuggle more Jewish kids into the Aryan side. Irena looked at danger straight in the face and smuggled kids through the sewer. Once the Nazi got wind of people smuggling Jews through the sewer they started putting posing the sewers so in anybody went down there they would die. That day Irena smuggled almost 200 kids throughout these
When Irene Safran was only twenty-one years old, her carefree life ended in the face of the Holocaust. Born to two Jewish parents as one of ten children-- four girls and six boys in all-- in Munkachevo, Czechoslovakia around the year 1923, her world changed in early April 1944 when she and her family were transferred to a Jewish ghetto. For the next year, Irene's life was a series of deaths, losses, and humiliations no human should ever have to suffer, culminating, years later, with a triumphant ending. Her story is proof that the human spirit can triumph over all manner of adversity and evil.
This project is about a brave woman who survived the Holocaust.Eva Galler was born in january 1,1924 and she died on january 5,2006. She was the oldest of eight children.Her father,Israel Vagel,was the head of the jewish community in their town.Eva’s family were well off compared to the other.Eva,unlike most girls at the time,she went to high school,educated herself and got employed at the local office as a secretary.
In the year 1941, Lithuania was invaded and many Jewish families fled from Lithuania. Margarets family didn't leave because her brother Alik was at a children's holiday camp. Margaret was never sent to a camp, she lived in the ghetto. Margaret's description of the ghetto years as “dreadful”. The people were forced to do hard labour and were deprived of their food.
In the selection, “Isabella Katz And the Holocaust: A Living Testimony”, by Richard L. Greaves, the author tells about the Holocaust, the destruction of the Jews by the Nazis and the terrible experiences of people who were there. Оne of the participants of these events is Isabelle Katz that lived with her family in Hungary. In 1944, Hitler occupied Hungary with the idea to kill all the Jews. One day, fascists took her family and all other Jews from their homes. Later, all of them were transported to the camp of Auschwitz. Upon arrival at the camp, all families were separated. Isabella heard screams of people burning in crematorium within 9 months when she was there. The Jews in the camp were on the brink of their life and death, depending only
As the war dwindled down, the Bilecki family lingered to their Polish home. Though they were rich in heart, the friction between the slips of tinted cash and the jangling of the metal coins were the only sound that seemed to be worth hearing. Sadly, for them there was a lack of it. The Jews that they saved acted as their guardian angel, as the Bilecki clan did for them. From all around the world, across the sea, the Jews kept them from malnutrition and naked chills. It wasn’t until 1998 that the secret of the Bilecki kindness was unveiled. Not only did they get the recognition they deserve, the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous had planned an infinitesimal surprise. Waiting, as the sounds of aircrafts roared, stood five of the survivors the Bilecki family had guided to asylum. The vulnerability of the raw moment was exposed as they shared their tears. The applause throbbed emphatically like the robust flapping of an angel’s wings. Their life saving feat did not go unacknowledged by the Righteous Among the Nations. Their unselfish deeds of valor and grace set themselves into being heroes.
Life In A Jar: The Irena Sendler Project was a true story about three teenagers from Kansas who study the then hidden story of Irena Sendler and her efforts in helping 2,500 children escape the largest Jewish ghetto in Nazi occupied Europe. The ghetto was located in Warsaw, Poland. The story of Irena comes into light in Uniontown Kansas, year 2000. Liz Cambers takes a history class in which the students must create a project for Nation History Day. This is when Sendler’s story is uncovered. Struck by the courage and accomplishment of Irena, Liz and two other students, Megan and Sabrina write a play showcasing Sendler and what she did for the people in the ghetto. The Warsaw ghetto held over 400,000 jews in a 1.3 sq. mile area. At least 245,000 of these residents were deported east to Treblinka extermination camp in the course of two months in 1942. However between Grossaktion Warsaw, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and razing,
From 1941 to 1945, flames grew upon buildings, shattering windows and smashed doors, arrests and detentions, forced labor, gasses of mass killings, marches and starvations, and torturous procedures. This may sound like a nightmare, but it was reality in the eyes of the Jews. Even through the horrendous executions, some found sanity in their favor to help others. Help could consist of providing shelter, forging identification papers, assisting in escape, being active in resistance, and risking their own lives. One of thousands of people to assist the Jews was Jeanne Daman.
“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I cannot feel it. I believe in God even when he is silent”. These are the words that were carved onto a German jail cell wall by a Jewish prisoner during the Holocaust. The mentality of knowing God would watch out for the Jewish people affected by the Holocaust was really the only reason for staying hidden throughout the two year span that the Holocaust lasted. One of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Jeannine Burk, could be a perfect example. Jeannine hid from the Nazis for two years, and the urge to see her family again was what drove her to keep hidden and go through such a difficult experience with confusion blinding her every move.
Children were separated from their parents. Once their parents were safe she believed that they should be reunited with them. Irena wrote down every kids name and where they were staying. “Sendler wrote down all relevant information in a special code on used cigarette papers she collected,” ( “Irena Sendler,” [World Biography] 2). Using code allowed her to know where they were but no one else could get that information. But just writing in code wasn’t safe enough. “These lists of names were then put in jars and buried in the yard of a friend’s house at 9 Ledarska Street in Warsaw,” (“Irena sendler,” [World Biography] 3). The list was safe from the Naxis hands because she buried it. She kept this list in order to reunite them with there parents but unfortunately were died. “ Most of the Ghetto families had died at the Treblinka death camp,”(“Irena Sendler,” [World Biography] 3). Despite her best efforts she wasn’t successful at reuniting them. Irena wanted the children to have there parents and took steps to make that happen, but most of their parents died during the world. The effort she made was notable because after saving them she could be done but she still wanted to help
January 30, 1933 started the calamity that would result in the mass murder of some six million Jews. It occurred in all countries that the Germans, also known as Nazis, occupied during World War 2, including Germany and Poland. Jews were sent to enclosed ghettos where they were given insufficient amounts of food and were in unsanitary conditions. By the time of 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the “Final Solution”, for their plan was to wipe out the Jewish people. Jews were sent to death camps of which they were put into gas chambers and killed. Many died from malnutrition. It was the time of genocide, of mass destruction. To the leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were considered a threat to German racial purity and community. They were an inferior
Anzia Yezierska’s personal immigrant narrative began in Russian Poland. She was born around 1885, and immigrated to America with her family when she was 15 years old. Yezierska’s family were Jews who escaped from the anti-Semitic government that was in control of Russia at that time. They settled in New York’s Lower East Side, along with millions of East European Jews who fled to the United States ("Anzia" 28:332).
Irena Sendler used her inspiration from her family to find courage and bravery to help others. Irena’s father, Dr. Stanisław Krzyżanowski, was where she found most of her inspiration. He was a physician in Poland and treated many Jewish patients. When there was an outbreak of typhus many other doctors stepped down and decided not to help because of how contagious it was, but Irena’s father was one of the very few who decided to stay and help. Later in life he ended up dying from the disease, but in the end he also treated many patients. He used to follow a proverb that he told his daughter which was “If you see someone drowning, you must jump into the water to save them, whether you can swim or not” (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Basically
Throughout history, many things have happened, such as the Holocaust, that included people who will blindly obey to orders given to them that ended many lives. Events where people have blindly obeyed orders, such as mass killings of innocent people or groups, were called genocides. The people leading genocides were trying to destroy a certain race or ethnic group by either killing them or dehumanizing them, they treated the people very poorly and made the targeted people feel like animals. One of the biggest genocide in history was the Holocaust which targeted Jews, disabled people, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, etc. The leader of the Holocaust was Adolf Hitler, who had the Germans kill more than six million Jews and others that were not considered the perfect German, which was described as blue eyed, blond hair, and tall. People will follow orders blindly because they wanted to feel powerful or superior, the events were related to an individual's religion or beliefs, individuals wished to appear as obedient.
The Holocaust is a very large topic with many subtopics within, which many people have never heard of. One in particular is the Hidden Children of the Holocaust. Like a majority of individuals, I never heard of this topic before, until I started my inquiry work. Hiding children during the holocaust was an effort to save thousands of children’s lives. The children were hidden in different ways, either with false identities, underground, and with or without their parents. The children with false identities were allowed to participate in everyday life activities, like attend school and socialize with children their age, which in the long run this lead to less emotional and mental issues. However, the children that were hidden and not allowed to leave their hiding spots often faced boredom, pain, and torment. Some children were capable of being hid with their parents while other children were not. Depending on the situation the child was in, depends on the effects it had on the child during this time. In this paper, I will be discussing works by two scholars, Natalia Aleksiun’s Gender and Daily Lives of Jews in Hiding in Eastern Galicia and Judy Mitchell’s Children of the Holocaust. Aleksiun’s article talks about the daily lives of Jews in hiding and also about how they prepared their hideouts. Aleksiun’s article mainly focuses on children that were hidden with their families. In Mitchell’s article, he focuses on the hidden children and gives examples/survivor stories on what it