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A brave woman in Poland

· Central & Eastern Europe · Historical views

Here is a story about a woman, who recently died at the great age of 98. She helped send thousands of young Jewish people to safety in WW2. This is an amazing story. Her tale needs to be more widely known. RIP.

August 17th, 2009 |

8 comments to A brave woman in Poland

  • Alisa
    August 17, 2009 at 1:57 pm

    According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Peace Prize should be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

    So, here we have a woman who put her life on the line every day to save people with whom some might say she had only a country and a God in common, and she was passed over for a prestigious award in favor of a man who invented the Internet and whose goal will make billions miserable for the sake of bad science.

  • Ted Schuerzinger
    August 17, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    I suppose this would be as good a place as any to mention that Sir Nicholas Winton is still alive.

  • Nick M
    August 17, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    Yes it would Ted. What was the name of the British Embasy official who played fast and loose before the war with citizenship requirements and spirited a great many Jews out of Germany. Sort of ” So your Granny once went on holiday to Brighton sort of thing”.

  • Millie Woods
    August 17, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    I first heard of Mrs. Sendler earlier this year when one of the Kansan students involved in researching her life and the creation of a drama about her called Life in a Jar was interviewed on my local radio. It was such a remarkable story made even more so by the Kansan high schoolteacher of social studies who assigned her life as a research project for his students. Out of that grew students’ efforts to make her inspirational life and work known. Bravo to all of them – Irena Sendler and the wonderfully creative Kansan high school teacher and the students he inspired.

  • Paul Marks
    August 17, 2009 at 6:59 pm

    A fine posting and comments.

  • Michael Jennings
    August 19, 2009 at 12:02 pm

    Nick M: I think you are probably referring to Frank Foley. He was a spy with a cover as an embassy official rather than simply being an embassy official.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Foley

    The nice thing about him is that his career was apparently not ruined for doing this or anything like that, and one wonders how much tacit approval he had from his superiors. There are many cases of people from various countries who did similar things having their careers ruined or even being sent to prison for disobeying orders and/or committing fraud. In most cases they were eventually rehabilitated, but in some cases it took a long time.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Lutz
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara

  • Paul Marks
    August 22, 2009 at 9:41 pm

    Yes one (by “one” I mean “I”) tends to assume that people who make a brave stand suffer for it and end up dying in poverty.

    For example, for years I assumed that is what happened to John Plummer of Kettering.

    A man rather like myself – born in London, but came to Kettering at early age. Worked in dead end jobs for many years and suffered various misfortunes – but still managed to write against big governement and against union thugs.

    I assumed, for years, that the story ended with him dying in the street (or in a hovel).

    However – John Plummer actually emigrated to Australia and ended his life as a wealthy newspaper editior, married and with a family.

    I found this out only a few days ago – and it astonished me.

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