SUBHENDU RAJ'S SPACE

- Dr. Subhendu Ranjan Raj -

Sr. Asso. Professor , Dept. of Political Science

PGDAVE College

(In Memoriam :Irene Sendler (1910 – 2008)

You may remember Schindler's List - a profoundly shocking, unsparing, fact-based epic of the nightmarish Holocaust of Nazi monstrosity on Jews which remains Steven Spielberg's most accomplished award-winning masterpiece. The classic film was about Oskar Schlindler who was able to save the lives of 1,200 Jews by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were in Poland and the Czech Republic.

For me personally , an unforgettable image from this film is of a little girl in a red coat and candles burning with orange flames (the only scene in colour as the entire film in-between is shot in crisp black and white) walking down a path where everyone has been killed by Nazis … and sure enough this small girl was also destined to meet the same fate …tugs the heart of the viewers and has everyone hoping against hope wishing that at least the child should somehow escape the fate…

There was somebody who in that day and age who thought similarly, and who undertook the maximum of pain and risk to her life to save some of such children – children who unwittingly were put in concentration camps along with their parents to be gassed and killed. There was indeed a greater human than even the benevolent Oskar Schindler … and she was not rich ,influential, powerfully connected and close to the Nazis… She was Irene Sendler. A simple lady with super human commitment to humanity . She did what no one was able to do – she largely single- handedly ( she had a few confidantes ) indefatigably saved the lives of 2500 Jewish children who had been condemned to die in a Nazi concentration camp in Warsaw . By any measure, Irena Sendler was one of the most remarkable and noble figures to have emerged from the horrors of World War II. But, until recently, her extraordinary compassion and heroism went largely unrecorded.

Some children saved by Irene

Some of the children whom Irene was able to save from sure death.

On 12 May 2008, Irena Sendlerowa (commonly known as Irena Sendler) passed away of pneumonia at the age of 98 in Warsaw. Irena has often been referred to as "the female Oskar Schindler" in her native Poland for her daring and ingenuity in saving the lives of more than 2500 Jews ( most of them children) in German-occupied Poland during World War II. Unlike Oskar Schindler, whose story was the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1993 film Schindler's List, Irena Sendler was a relatively unknown figure to the world at large until 1999, when four Kansas high school students wrote and performed "Life in a Jar,"aplay about Irena's life-saving efforts in the Warsaw Ghetto.

A Los Angeles Times newspaper obituary for Irena described how Irena, a Polish social worker, passed herself off as a nurse to sneak supplies and aid into (and children out of) the Warsaw Ghetto, and the punishment she endured when she was finally caught by the Nazis .

Irene Sendler : Great Humanism , Extreme Courage

Irene at the age of 29.

Irene studied at Warsaw University and was a social worker in Warsaw when the German occupation of Poland began in 1939. In 1940, after the Nazis herded Jews into the ghetto and built a wall separating it from the rest of the city, where disease, especially typhoid, ran rampant. Social workers were not allowed inside the ghetto, but Sendler, imagining "the horror of life behind the walls," obtained fake identification and passed herself off as a nurse, allowed to bring in food, clothes and medicine.
By 1942, when the deadly intentions of the Nazis had become clear, that they wanted to exterminate Jews from the earth, Sendler joined a Polish underground organization, Zegota. She recruited 10 close friends — a group that would eventually grow to 25, all but one of them women — and began rescuing Jewish children.

During World War II, Irene, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto. She had an ulterior motive... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews. Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family. Most of course had been gassed at the concentration camps.

Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted. She and her friends smuggled the children out in boxes, suitcases, sacks and coffins, sedating babies to quiet their cries. Some were spirited away through a network of basements and secret passages. Operations were timed to the second. One of Sendler's children told of waiting by a gate in darkness as a German soldier patrolled nearby. When the soldier passed, the boy counted to 30, then made a mad dash to the middle of the street, where a manhole cover opened and he was taken down into the sewers and eventually to safety.

Most of the children who left with Sendler's group were taken into Roman Catholic convents, orphanages and homes and given non-Jewish aliases. Sendler recorded their true names on thin rolls of paper in the hope that she could reunite them with their families later. She preserved the precious scraps in jars and buried them in a friend's garden.
Goodness in the Time of Holocaust

In 1943, she was captured by the Nazis and tortured but refused to tell her captors who her co-conspirators were or where the bottles were buried. She also resisted in other ways. According to Felt, when Sendler worked in the prison laundry, she and her co-workers made holes in the German soldiers' underwear. When the officers discovered what they had done, they lined up all the women and shot every other one. It was just one of many close calls for Sendler. During one particularly brutal torture session, her captors broke her feet and legs, and she passed out. When she awoke, a Gestapo officer told her he had accepted a bribe from her comrades in the resistance to help her escape. The officer added her name to a list of executed prisoners. Sendler went into hiding but continued her rescue efforts.

Sendler had begun her rescue operation before she joined the organized resistance and helped a number of adults escape, including the man she later married. "We think she saved about 500 people before she joined Zegota," Felt said, which would mean that Sendler ultimately helped rescue about 3,000 Polish Jews. When the war ended, Sendler unearthed the jars and began trying to return the children to their families. For the vast majority, there was no family left. Many of the children were adopted by Polish families; others were sent to Israel.

On 20 October 1943, Sendler was arrested. She managed to stash away incriminating evidence such as the coded addresses of children in care of Zegota and large sums of money to pay to those who helped Jews. She was sentenced to death and sent to the infamous Pawiak prison, but underground activists managed to bribe officials to release her. Her close encounter with death did not deter her from continuing her activity. After her release in February 1944, even though she knew that the authorities were keeping an eye on her, Sendler continued her underground activities. Because of the danger she had to go into hiding. The necessities of her clandestine life prevented her from attending her mother's funeral.

She smuggled out the children in suitcases, ambulances, coffins, sewer pipes, rucksacks and, on one occasion, even a tool box. Those old enough to ask knew their saviour only by her codename "Jolanta". But she kept hidden a meticulous record of all their real names and new identities - created to protect the Jewish youngsters from the pursuing Nazis - so they might later be re-united with their families. In almost all cases this could never happen – as the parents of the children , even their close kith and kin were killed by Nazis.

When the Germans finally caught her, the Roman Catholic social worker had managed to save 2,500 Jewish babies and toddlers from deportation to the concentration camps. She had spirited them out of the heavily-guarded Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, and hidden their identities in two glass jars buried under an apple tree in her neighbour's garden.

Never received fullsome Honour

One aspect of Sendler few talk about, was this that in post war period not many gave credit to her for the great humanitarian work she had done.“In postwar communist Poland her heroic deeds went unpublished and were even officially frowned upon by the regime, which was not sympathetic towards Jews.”In fact, in 1968, when the Polish Soviet Puppet Communist government expelled most of Poland’s remaining Jews in an anti-Zionist campaign, such was the commitment that Sendler had towards saving innocent lives that she told the authorities that she would once again shelter Jews from the authorities.

Irene passed away on May 12, 2008, in Warsaw, Poland. She was 98 years old. At the time of her death , she was heartbroken that she could have had save some more children from death from the Fascists. Such was her philosophy and her commitment .

On 14 March 2007, Sendler was honored by the Polish Senate. Aged 97, she was unable to leave her nursing home to receive the honor, but she sent a statement through Elżbieta Ficowska, whom Sendler had helped to save as an infant. Polish President Lech Kaczyński stated she "can justly be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize." Also in 2007 the Polish government presented her as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. This initiative was officially supported by the State of Israel through its prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Organization of Holocaust Survivors in Israel residents. The authorities of Oświęcim (Auschwitz in German) expressed support for this nomination, because Irena Sendler was considered one of the last living heroes of her generation, and demonstrated a strength, conviction and extraordinary values against an evil of an extraordinary nature. She was passed over that year for the Nobel Peace Prize, which was given to Al Gore, and to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Yes, the truest honour however was never conferred on her, something that was the least that should have been conferred on her. When Irene was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize at long last (something that should have been bestowed on her earlier ).... that honor was not awarded to her. She LOST to a politician . US Vice President Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming. Yes, only for a slide show. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former U.S. Vice-President Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Irene Sendler with the survivors of the Holocaust – children whom she had saved, now adults

So here it was . A true apostle of universal humanitarianism, an exemplary angel of substance who moved heaven and hell in the most dangerous of times , who risked her well being , life and reputation for saving innocent human beings in the most heinous of regimes with the greatest of fear, risk and tension was ignored .

The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) expressed its disappointment that Irena Sendler had not yet been honored with a Nobel Prize of 2007. IFSW said it was deeply saddened that the life work of Nobel nominee Irena Sendler, social worker, did not receive formal recognition', said David N. Jones, IFSW President. 'Irena Sendler and her helpers took personal risks day after day to prevent the destruction of individual lives — the lives of the children of the Warsaw ghetto. This work was done very quietly, without many words and at the risk of their lives. This is so typical of social work, an activity which changes and saves lives but is done out of the glare of publicity and often at personal risk. IFSW recognises her again and at the same time celebrates the commitment and dedication of thousands of social workers around the world who also bring hope and care to people often living on the edge of despair.'

More than anything , Irene Sendler deserved recognition universally for a work which is rare. Her personal philosophy in life namely that “ Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on earth , and not a title to glory “ is self explanatory and is incredibly modest and supremely sublime. We in India, would have immediately called her a ‘ living god’. Why ? Because Irene Sendler was able to bestow through her never say die attitude and efforts the supreme of all gifts – THE GIFT OF LIFE. In India we treat this at par with god’s will and benediction. If the world runs still , it is because of such people like Irene Sendler who are self sacrificing , honest and committed to saving human life in the midst of so much hatred , violence and mindless egotism. As history shows time and again, people tend to remember the good work done by the likes of Irene Sendler , Mother Teresa rather than Hitler, Mussolini or Stalin. Long Live Irene Sendler !