Tuesday, May 19, 2009

IRENA SENDLER, NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LOSER(?)

My good friend Jay sent me an e-mail with a video clip of a newscast on Irena Sendler’s heroic efforts to save Jewish children during WWII. Sendler saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, providing them false documents, and sheltering them in individual and group children's homes outside the Ghetto. The news anchor lamented the fact that, in 2007, Sendler had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, but lost out to Al Gore, who was recognized for his crusade against global warming. Irena Sendler (in Polish Irena Sendlerowa née Krzyżanowska) died in 2008 at the age of 98.

In German-occupied Poland, all household members were punished by death if a Jew were found concealed in their home or property. Death was a punishment for providing any aid to Jews, even for giving bread or water to a Jew just passing by. This was the most severe law enforced by the Nazis in occupied Europe. That's why the Irena Sendler story is so remarkable.

You can judge for yourselves as to who was more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize - Sendler or Gore. From Wikipedia, here is the Irena Sendler story:

During the German occupation of Poland, Sendler lived in Warsaw (prior to that, she had lived in Otwock and Tarczyn while working for urban Social Welfare departments). As early as 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland, she began aiding Jews. She and her helpers created over 3,000 false documents to help Jewish families, prior to joining the organized Żegota resistance and the children's division. Helping Jews was very risky—in German-occupied Poland, all household members risked death if they were found to be hiding Jews, a more severe punishment than in other occupied European countries.

In December 1942 the newly created Żegota (the Council to Aid Jews) nominated her (by her cover name Jolanta to head its children's section. As an employee of the Social Welfare Department, she had a special permit to enter the Warsaw Ghetto to check for signs of typhus, something the Nazis feared would spread beyond the Ghetto. During these visits, she wore a Star of David as a sign of solidarity with the Jewish people and so as not to call attention to herself.

She cooperated with the Children's Section of the Municipal Administration, linked with the RGO (Central Welfare Council), a Polish relief organization that was tolerated under German supervision. She organized the smuggling of Jewish children out of the Ghetto, carrying them out in boxes, suitcases and trolleys. Under the pretext of conducting inspections of sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, Sendler visited the Ghetto and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and trams, sometimes disguising them as packages. She also used the old courthouse at the edge of the Warsaw Ghetto (still standing) as one of the main routes for smuggling out children.

The children were placed with Polish families, the Warsaw orphanage of the Sisters of the Family of Mary, or Roman Catholic convents such as the Little Sister Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary Conceived Immaculate at Turkowice and Chotomów. Some children were smuggled to priests in parish rectories. She hid lists of their names in jars in order to keep track of their original and new identities. Żegota assured the children that, when the war was over, they would be returned to Jewish relatives.

In 1943 Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo, severely tortured, and sentenced to death. Żegota saved her by bribing German guards on the way to her execution. She was left in the woods, unconscious and with broken arms and legs. She was listed on public bulletin boards as among those executed. For the remainder of the war, she lived in hiding, but continued her work for the Jewish children. After the war, she dug up the jars containing the children's identities and attempted to find the children and return them to their parents. However, almost all of their parents had been killed at the Treblinka extermination camp or had gone missing otherwise.

In 1965 Sendler was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, which was confirmed in 1983 by the Israeli Supreme Court. She also was awarded the Commander's Cross by the Israeli Institute. Only in that year did the Polish communist government allowed her to travel abroad, to receive the award in Israel.

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