Irena SendlerIrena SendlerRighteous Gentile

Irena Sendler Irena Sendler (Sendlerowa)(Sendlerowa)• Born in 1910

• Catholic Social Worker

• Used fake ID to pose as a nurse to enter the walled off ghetto

• Convinced parents to hand over their children for safer placement in a non-Jewish family

• 1965 – The Righteous Among the Nations

• 2007 – nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

• Died May 12, 2008

http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/viewer/wlc/photo.php?RefId=89130

Zegota

• Council for Aid to Jews

• Part of the Polish underground resistance movement organized by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka

• Both worked to save the lives of the Jewish people despite threats from the Nazi Government.

http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/19762?hr=null

http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/20047?hr=null

http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/1917?hr=null

Fake Identification CardFake Identification Card

The Polish Underground Resistance Movement helped to issue thousands of fake identification cards to the Jewish people to help them escape the atrocities of the ghetto and the concentration camps.

http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/258?hr=null

RescuedRescuedFrom 1942 to 1943 2,500 Jewish babies and young children were rescued from the Warsaw Ghetto by Irena Sendler with the help of the Polish Underground Resistance Movement.

http://resources.ushmm.org/inquery/uia_doc.php/photos/1570?hr=null

Religious ChangesReligious Changes

Before the War After the War

CapturedCaptured

Caught by the Gestapo in 1943

Spent 3 months in captivity undergoing interrogation and torture

Refused to give up information and was sentenced to death

A guard in the Pawiak Prison was bribed by the Polish Resistance Movement and Irena was freed

She spent the rest of the war in hiding

Life in a JarLife in a Jar

After the war, Irena began to try and reunite all of the 2500 children in the jar with their families.

Irena and her work were all but forgotten until her story was discovered by a group of high school students in 1999.