During the Holocaust, many resistance groups helped free and provide food, clothing, medicine, and homes for victims, primarily Jewish ones. Having grown up near Warsaw, Poland and having seen the effects antisemitism had on Jews, Irena Sendler, a social worker, became a part of one of these groups. By the end of World War II, Irena had aided in the freeing of over 2,500 children. In order to fully understand Irena Sendler’s courageous acts, one must first understand the events that inspired her, how she aided others, and the impact of her actions on society today.
There were many things that influenced and inspired Irena Sendler’s courageous actions. When she was young, Irena grew up in Otwock, Poland, a town located near Warsaw (Latta,
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Ruth). She was a Roman Catholic, which was the predominant religion in the area along with Judaism (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Because of this, Irena grew up around and became friends with many Jewish people (Latte, Ruth). Irena’s father was a doctor in Otwock who treated aryan patients as well as Jewish patients when other doctors refused (Encyclopedia of World Biography).
Because of this, Irena was taught from a young age that everybody should be treated equally. Irena Sendler’s father died from typhus, a disease which he often treated, when Irena was only seven years old (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Even though Irena was young when this happened, her father left a lasting impact on her. Irena recalls her father repeating the ancient proverb "If you see a person drowning, you must jump into the water to save them, whether you can swim or not” (Encyclopedia of World Biography). "I saw the Polish nation drowning,” Sendler later said to Times of London, “and those in the most difficult position were the Jews. And among them those most vulnerable were the children. So I had to help" (Newsmakers). Years later, when sendler was 29 years old, World War II began. By then, she had become a social worker in the social welfare department of the municipal government of Warsaw (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Because of her municipal-government pass, Irena could enter the walled off section of town called the Warsaw Ghetto and bring the suffering and starving residents food, …show more content…
medical supplies, and clothing (Newsmakers). Sendler then joined the Polish Underground (Encyclopedia of World Biography), where she worked with various other women (Chidiac, Gerry). She continued helping the ghetto residents, and her work eventually led her to Rada Pomocy Zydom (the Council for Aid to Jews, which was funded by Polish government) known by the code name Zegota (Encyclopedia of World Biography). In December of 1942, Sendler was made head of the Zegota's children's division, where she worked under the alias Jolanta, smuggling children out of the ghetto. (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Irena Sendler aided many throughout WW2.
She was helped by her Jewish friend from university, Ewa, who lived inside the ghetto (Atwood, Kathryn J., 45). Ewa would give Sendler the addresses of families with young children (Atwood, Kathryn J.,p.45). Sendler would then visit the families, trying to convince them to let her take the children to safety (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Many would ask if Sendler could guarantee the safety of their children, to which she would reply that the only guarantee was that the children would die if they stayed (Newsmakers). Sendler would then smuggle children through tunnels, in crates, or in trucks (Encyclopedia of World Biography). She would then give them new names, as well as false identity papers (Encyclopedia of World Biography). The children were then hidden in Catholic orphanages, boarding schools, or with families (Chidiac, Gerry). Sendler kept track of the children's real names and the homes they had been placed in, hoping to reunite them to their families after the war (Encyclopedia of World Biography). She would write on cigarette paper in code, before burying the paper in jars under an apple tree in a friends yard (Newsmakers). Irena carried out her work without major disturbance until October 20, 1943, when the Gestapo broke into her apartment and arrested her (Atwood, Kathryn J., p.46). Sendler was brought to Pawiak Prison for interrogation, where the Gestapo did all that they could to get her to talk (Atwood, Kathryn
J., p. 47). After being tortured and beaten until the bones in her legs broke, Sendler still refused to say anything about the details of her work or the names of any associates or Zegota members (Newsmakers). She was sentenced to death, but on the way to the execution site, a Zegota member managed to bribe a guard and Irena was able to escape (Atwood, Kathryn J., p. 47). Because her name stayed on the list of people killed that day, she was forced to live in secrecy, but continued her work anyways (Newsmakers). Irena Sendler has had a huge impact on society. The first recognition of her work was in 1965, when she was named one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" (Encyclopedia of World Biography). In 2003, she was she received the highest civilian award in Poland, the Order of the White Eagle (Encyclopedia of World Biography). In 2007, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (Encyclopedia of World Biography). But even though she had been recognized by some for her work, her story was still widely unknown. That was until three students in Kansas worked on a year long extracurricular project where they wrote and performed a play titled "Life in a Jar”(Atwood, Kathryn J., p. 47). The play is now performed in schools across both Europe and the United States (Encyclopedia of World Biography). "Life in a Jar" became so popular, it even inspired the film "A Courageous Heart," released in 2009, one year after Sendler’s death (Chidiac, Gerry). Since then, many books, including children's books have been written about her, and she even had an exhibit at the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes (Life in a Jar). As her story spreads, so does her impact and the lesson that “We can all be heroes”(Chidiac, Gerry). Irena even had the opportunity to visit Israel in the late 1980's, where she met some of the children she saved.
Riva was forever grateful of all the magnificent friends she had and the unique treatment she received at Mittlesteine. While Riva was at Mittelsteine she got blood poisoning, and the doctor at the camp negotiated for Riva to be sent to a trained hospital where she was treated of her contamination. Riva was too fragile to work, so she instead worked at the first aid station for German soldiers rolling gauze pads into bundles. Riva also got additional helpings of food (mashed potatoes and vegetables) that was sneaked in for her by a nurse, and the nurse let her have a hot bath for the first time since she left her home. Riva also had many friends in the Łódź Ghetto that looked out for her well being such as Mr. and Mrs. Berkenwald, who acted as Riva and her brother’s parents. They would save their servings of food, wood, and water for the kids because they knew they were vital for their daily life.
I decided to watch the testimony of Sally Roisman, a holocaust survivor. Sally had a strictly orthodox family, with a mother, father, and 10 siblings. Their family owned a textile mill which made dresses and suits. Sally attended a Jewish girls school but didn’t get the chance to finish her education before her school was closed down. Her teachers said very good things about her and that made her and her mother happy. Sally later returned and studied to finish school after the war. She still studies to make up for her loss today. Her family lived in an apartment complex were 15 families lived. 50% of the families were Jews in the complex.
In researching testimony, I chose to write about Eva Kor’s. Eva and her sister Miriam were taken to Auschwitz II- Birkenau from Ceheiu, a Romanian ghetto, in the 1940’s. Eva’s story starts out in Port, Romania, where she was born and raised with her family before the Holocaust. Eva had two older sisters, Aliz and Edit, who were murdered during the Holocaust along with her parents. The last time Eva saw her father and sisters was when they arrived in Auschwitz.
•When the war ended, Irena tracked down all of the children that she rescued by using the names and the notes that she wrote on those pieces of paper that she buried. She did this to try to bring the families together again.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel) The Holocaust is a topic that is still not forgotten and is used by many people, as a motivation, to try not to repeat history. Many lessons can be taught from learning about the Holocaust, but to Eve Bunting and Fred Gross there is one lesson that could have changed the result of this horrible event. The Terrible Things, by Eve Bunting, and The Child of the Holocaust, by Fred Gross, both portray the same moral meaning in their presentations but use different evidence and word choice to create an overall
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal is a memoir about his time as a Jewish child in multiple ghettos and death camps in and around Germany during World War II. The author shares about his reunions with family and acquaintances from the war in the years between then and now. Buergenthal wished to share his Holocaust story for a number of reasons: to prevent himself from just being another number, to contribute to history, to show the power and necessity of forgiveness, the will to not give up, and to question how people change in war allowing them to do unspeakable things. The memoir is not a cry for private attention, but a call to break the cycle of hatred and violence to end mass crimes.
Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
The children during the Holocaust had many struggles with their physical health. They were forced to stay in very small places and were unable to have contact with a doctor if they had gotten sick. Also, they had a lack of food and some children in their host homes would get abused and mistreated. At least a little over one million children were murdered during the Holocaust (“Children’s Diaries”). Out of all the Jewish children who suffered because of the Nazis and their axis partners, only a small number of surviving children actually wrote diaries and journals (“Children’s diaries”).
In the film “A Day in Auschwitz” we learn about a woman named Kitty Hart, a holocaust survivor that was forced into Auschwitz only at the age of sixteen. In present day; we observe Kitty and two other young girls (Lydia and Natalia) walk around the camp while also being educated on the horrors that took place in auschwitz, and Kitty’s struggle for survival. The documentary also mentions Kitty’s mother, a smart, skilled, and talented woman that helped both her and her daughter escape Auschwitz.
Grenville, John A.S. “Neglected Holocaust Victims: the Mischlinge, the Judischversippte, and the Gypsies.” The Holocaust and History. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998. 315-326.
"Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. University of South Florida, 1 Jan. 1997. Web. 19 May 2014. .
Through selection at the extermination camps, the Nazis forced children to be separated from their relatives which destroyed the basic unit of society, the family. Because children were taken to different barracks or camps, they had to fend for themselves. In the book A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal, the author describes the relief he felt when reunited with his mother after the War.
Ofer, Dalia, and Lenore J. Weitzman. Women in the Holocaust. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. 1. Print.
While she was studying profusely she interrupted her studies to “work and study Jewish culture at Yivo, the legendary research institute in Vilna, Poland.” (Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against The Jews 1933-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1986), Front Cover.) She studied here for a rewarding year and then returned to New York to study more with the Yivo. After the debilitating WWII ended, she went over to Europe where she helped the Jewish people “recreate schools and libraries, and she recovered vast collections of books. 2 seized by the Nazis”.