Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler is responsible for saving 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Her support for the Jewish people may have something to do with the way she was raised as a child. She was born on February 15, 1910 near Warsaw, Poland. Irena Sendler's father was a doctor who worked with many Jewish patients and as a child she played with her Jewish neighbors. This was uncommon because most Christian children were not allowed to play with Jewish children in the early 1900s. Later, as a young adult Sendler cofounded Zegota, an underground group that helped Jews during the Holocaust. They smuggled in medicine and supplies, but most famously smuggled out thousands of Jewish children. These children were placed in foster homes with Non-Jewish families and after the war ended they were to be reunited with surviving family members. Through her efforts Sendler received several awards and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.  After a long meaningful life, well into her nineties, Irena Sendler passed away in 2008, but her story continues to live on. In order to save the children and become a hero, Sendler needed several qualities: she needed to come up with unique ideas, be someone who did not give up, but most importantly she needed to be willing to take risks and face dangerous situations. Irena Sendler's creativity, determination, and bravery, added up to make a true hero and inspiration to others. 

Irena Sendler possesses creativity, which helped her succeed in saving thousands of children. During the war, Sendler had to come up with many ways to hide the children so they would not be caught while trying to escape. "...She and her team smuggled out children and babies in whatever ways they could find, including a mechanic's box, in coffins, and disguised as parcels" (Andrew Mickel). This required creativity because she had to think of creative ways to go unnoticed by the guards. She did this by disguising the children as boxes and objects. She also used her job at the Welfare department as an excuse to enter the ghetto. This helped her save a large amount of children without being caught because the guards thought she was there to deal with the Typhoid outbreak. She had to make it look like she was just delivering things to and from the ghetto as part of her job, when really she was sneaking out children. She also needed a way to document where all of the saved children were and who their families were so they could be reunited later after the war. "She kept a list of all the smuggled children in a jar beneath a tree in a friend's garden" (Andrew Mickel). This allowed Sendler to stay organized and make sure all children were accounted for and that she would be able to help them even after the war was over. Instead of keeping documents that could be easily discovered, she came up with a creative solution. These jars were to be dug up after the war ended or when they were needed. Irena Sendler's creative way of thinking helped her to save the children from the ghetto. 

Irena Sendler showed determination in her efforts to help the Jewish people, by doing whatever she could do to help them. She even went as far as forging documents for them that they could use to receive benefits. "To get the Jewish people the help they needed, even though they were not allowed any social benefits, Irena and her group forged fake ID cards and birth certificates. These contained names of non Jewish poles who had recently died" (Susan Brophy Down). Forging documents was only one of the many risks Sendler and her team took to help the Jewish people. While others wouldn't even acknowledge what was happening to the Jewish people, Sendler was making a difference by putting herself out there and taking risks. She was breaking laws just to get the Jewish people the things that other people took for granted. Even after the war was over, Irena Sendler was determined to do more to help the children she had saved. "When the war was over she tried to reunite the children with parents who had survived the war" (Andrew Mickel). Sendler didn't rest after the children were in safe foster homes away from the ghetto. She continued to do as much as she could to help these children and their families. She pushed herself to do more and more to help these people who were being deprived of human rights. Sendler's determination to help as much as she could is a part of what makes her a hero. 

It takes bravery to do what Irena Sendler did for those children. She took countless risks to help the Jewish people of the Warsaw Ghetto. "Finding families on the Christian- so called Aryan side- willing to shelter the children, and thereby willing to risk being executed if the Germans ever found out, was also not easy" (Peter K. Gessner). It was a huge risk to take asking these families to take in the Jewish children. It not only risked the children's safety, but her's as well. If they refused to shelter the children and told the authorities about Sendler's work she would have been executed. But, yet, she still did it anyway; putting her own life at risk to make sure these children's lives got better. Eventually Sendler was captured, and was to be executed, but escaped when a friend bribed one of the prison guards. "...Sendler was captured and tortured by the Gestapo. They broke her feet and legs but she still refused to reveal the identities of her helpers or the children" (Andrew Mickel). She did not give up after being captured, instead she stayed strong through the torture and did not give away any information about what she and her helpers were doing. She protected them even when her own life was on the line and continued to stand up for them. The amount of bravery Irena Sendler had to of had to continue to protect others even when she was vulnerable makes her a hero.