Heroine of the Holocaust

I'm not a great fan of chain emails and Facebook posts generally, but one today about Irena Sendler stopped me in my tracks.

Not heard of her? Neither had I, to my shame. Who was she? During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a plumbing/sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.

Being German, she knew the Nazis' plans for the Jews in Warsaw, occupied Poland.

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger children).

She also had a dog she trained to bark when Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the infants' noises.

She managed to smuggle out and save more than 2500 children and infants.

Many were already outside the Warsaw Ghetto and in hiding. The ghetto was sealed off in November 1940. Close to 400,000 people had been driven into the small area that had been allocated and their situation soon deteriorated.

Irena managed to obtain a permit from the municipality that enabled her to enter the ghetto to inspect the sanitary conditions. Once inside, she established contact with activists of the Jewish welfare organsation and began to help them. She helped smuggle Jews out of the ghetto to the German side and helped set up hiding places for them.

Irena (code name Jolanta) was arrested on October 20, 1943. She felt almost liberated. She was placed in the notorious Piawiak prison, where she was constantly questioned and tortured. The Nazis broke her legs, arms and beat her severely.

She received a death sentence. She was to be shot. Unbeknown to her, the Council for the Aid of Jews network had bribed the German executioner who helped her escape.

Next day the Germans proclaimed her execution. Posters were put up all over the city with the news that she had been shot. Irena read the posters herself.

During the rest of the war, she lived hidden, just like the children she rescued. Irena was the only one who knew where the children were to be found.

Almost all the parents of the children Irena saved died at the Treblinka death camp. Most had been gassed.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept the list in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back garden.

When the war was finally over, she dug up the bottles and began the job of finding the children and trying to find a living parent in a bid to reunite the families.

Those children she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Three times - 2006, 2007, and 2008 Irena has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Three times she has been overlooked.

Imagine the number of people who are alive today because of her incredible bravery.

Barack Obama won one before becoming President for his work as a community organiser and former vice-president Al Gore won in 2007 for a slide show on global warming.

Now, more than ever, with some people, claiming the holocaust to be 'a myth', it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets. So please share this blog and keep Irena's memory alive - and pressure on for her to be given her just reward, even though it will of course be posthumous.

In 1991 Sendler was made an honorary citizen of Israel. Several schools in Poland have also been named after her.

On October 19, 1965, Yad Vashem - the Holocaust memorial in Israel - recognised Irena Sendler as Righteous Among the Nations. The tree planted in her honor stands at the entrance to the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations.

A book and film The Courageous at Heart, have been made of her life and incredible story. Two more for the must-read and see list.