Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave…
Risk taker! Is that how someone would describe you? There are a variety of ways someone can be a risk taker. And, we should be…when God gives us the green light! That is when we know we will be successful at the task He has assigned us to do.
Oh, we can have that nature about us on a regular basis. Maybe we enjoy hang-gliding, or beginning a new business adventure, or even back-packing across the US by yourself, without a cash reserve! All risky. But the woman in the picture risked her life for the best reason of all…so another life could might have the opportunity to live!
Irena Sendlerowa: Courage and Valor
Irena Sendler, born in 1910, in Warsaw, Poland, was raised by her parents to respect and love people regardless of their ethnicity or social status. She grew up in the town of Otwock, Poland. Her father, a physician, died from typhus that he contracted during an epidemic in 1917. He was the only doctor in his town of Otwock, near Warsaw who would treat the poor, mostly Jewish community of this tragic disease. As he was dying, he told 7-year-old Irena, “If you see someone drowning you must try to rescue them, even if you cannot swim.
When World War II started in 1939, Irena immediately started protecting her Jewish friends in Warsaw. She worked as a social services director in Warsaw. She would make false documents for Jews in the city and had already started gathering her famous rescue network. When the Warsaw Ghetto was erected in 1940, Irena saw the danger ahead. When liquidation started in 1942, Irena and her network accelerated the rescue process. She got permission to work in the ghetto as a plumbing/sewer specialist. She was a devout Catholic, and had an ulterior motive for going into the ghetto. Irena smuggled infants out of the ghetto in the bottom of her tool box to save them from the gas chambers. Larger children she carried out in burlap sacks. She transported them to safe houses in her truck. In the truck, was a trained dog that would bark at the sight of Nazi’s warning Irena, and dissuading the Nazi’s-they did not like the barking dog! The dog barking also covered any noises the infants and children may have made.
She managed to smuggle out 2,500, infants and children, with the help of other recruits. About 800 were taken from the Warsaw Ghetto, many of which were orphans. Approximately the same number were in orphanages and convents, Irena and her network assisted in the hiding of these children.
Also, while working with the underground organization, Zegota, Irena and her network would assist in the hiding of about 900 children and many adults in homes around the city. Irena was caught by the Gestapo and almost killed in 1943 when they broke both her legs and beat her severely. She escaped Pawiak prison and stayed in hiding for most of the rest of the war. Amazingly, she kept a record of the names of all the children in a glass jar buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war she tried to locate the parents-most had been gassed! She was slated to receive the Nobel Peace prize for her risk taking and life saving work. She was not selected. That year Barak Obama received it a year before he became president, for community organizer for ACORN. I believe that was his only reward, hers was awaiting her in Heaven, for an eternity!
Irena received world-wide recognition after the ‘Life in a Jar’ project first visited Poland. In the 1960s she had been recognized by Yad Vashem but the Communist authorities agitated her continuously.
I wanted you to learn about Irena not only because she is a precious human being, but because we need to think about our response to situations like this. I have stated in this platform before, but it bears repeating; ‘our body will never go where our mind has never been.’ We don’t know what will happen in the days ahead. It is better to think about we we might have to do, and never have it happen rather be shocked when it does happen, and we don’t know what to do!
Irena was a real hero, one we can truly emulate for her self-sacrificing, risk taking, selfless actions that literally changed the world as 2500 people were spared from brutal tyranny, and death. That’s a legacy I want to leave for the generations after me.
How about you?
Irena passed on in 2008. Her legacy is carried on in many ways, including the ‘Life in Jar’ play, which is presented around North America and the world.
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