FReeper Canteen ~ Irena Sendler ~ 15 May 2023

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[Kathy in Alaska]

 

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~ Hall of Heroes ~

Irena Sendler

Info from this website and this website. 

           

Today's hero is a little different in that she was neither in the military nor an American - but she is a hero nonetheless.  She performed a labor of love that was extraordinary.  I hope you are as moved by her story as I am.

Irena Sendlernee Krzyanowska, in

Poland commonly referred to as Irena Sendlerowa, 15 February 1910 - 12 May 2008) was a Polish Catholic social worker who served in the Polish Underground and the Żegota resistance organization in German-occupied Warsaw during World War II. Assisted by some two dozen other Żegota members, Sendler saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, providing them with false documents, and sheltering them in individual and group children's homes outside the Ghetto.

Irena Sendler sympathized with Jews from childhood. Her father Dr Stanislaw Krzyzanowski, a physician, died in February 1917 of typhus contracted while treating Jewish patients. She opposed the ghetto-bench system that existed at some prewar Polish universities and as a result was suspended from Warsaw University for three years.

During the German occupation of Poland Sendler lived in Warsaw (prior to that, she had lived in Otwock and Tarczyn while working for urban Social Welfare departments). As early as 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland, she began aiding Jews. She and her helpers created over 3,000 false documents to help Jewish families, prior to joining the organized Żegota resistance and the children's division. Helping Jews was very risky in German occupied Poland, all household members risked death if they were found to be hiding Jews, a more severe punishment than in other occupied European countries.

To be able to enter the Ghetto legally, Irena managed to be issued a pass from Warsaws Epidemic Control Department and she visited the Ghetto daily, reestablished contacts and brought food, medicines and clothing. But 5,000 people were dying a month from starvation and disease in the Ghetto, and she decided to help the Jewish children to get out. For Irena Sendler, a young mother herself, persuading parents to part with their children was in itself a horrendous task. Finding families willing to shelter the children, and thereby willing to risk their life if the Nazis ever found out, was also not easy.

Irena Sendler, who wore a star armband as a sign of her solidarity to Jews, began smuggling children out in an ambulance. She recruited at least one person from each of the ten centers of the Social Welfare Department. With their help, she issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures. Irena Sendler successfully smuggled almost 2,500 Jewish children to safety and gave them temporary new identities.

Some children were taken out in gunnysacks or body bags. Some were buried inside loads of goods. A mechanic took a baby out in his toolbox. Some kids were carried out in potato sacks, others were placed in coffins, some entered a church in the Ghetto which had two entrances. One entrance opened into the Ghetto, the other opened into the Aryan side of Warsaw. They entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians. "`Can you guarantee they will live?'" Irena later recalled the distraught parents asking. But she could only guarantee they would die if they stayed. "In my dreams," she said, "I still hear the cries when they left their parents."

Irena Sendler accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. "I sent most of the children to religious establishments," she recalled. "I knew I could count on the Sisters." Irena also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: "No one ever refused to take a child from me," she said. The children were given false identities and placed in homes, orphanages and convents. Irena Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the childrens original names and their new identities. She kept the only record of their true identities in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's back yard, across the street from German barracks, hoping she could someday dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past.

In all, the jars contained the names of 2,500 children ...

Nazi Genocide

But the Nazis became aware of Irena's activities, and on October 20, 1943 she was arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, who broke her feet and legs. She ended up in the Pawiak Prison, but no one could break her spirit. Though she was the only one who knew the names and addresses of the families sheltering the Jewish children, she withstood the torture, that crippled her for life, refusing to betray either her associates or any of the Jewish children in hiding. Sentenced to death, Irena was saved at the last minute when Zegota members bribed one of the Gestapo agents to halt the execution. She escaped from prison but for the rest of the war she was pursued by the Nazis.

After the war she dug up the jars and used the notes to track down the 2,500 children she placed with adoptive families and to reunite them with relatives scattered across Europe. But most lost their families during the Holocaust in Nazi death camps. The children had known her only by her code name Jolanta. But years later, after she was honored for her wartime work, her picture appeared in a newspaper. "A man, a painter, telephoned me," said Sendler, "`I remember your face,' he said. `It was you who took me out of the ghetto.' I had many calls like that!"

The Holocaust

Irena Sendler did not think of herself as a hero. She claimed no credit for her actions. "I could have done more," she said. "This regret will follow me to my death." She has been honored by international Jewish organizations - in 1965 she accorded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem organization in Jerusalem and in 1991 she was made an honorary citizen of Israel. Irena Sendler was awarded Poland's highest distinction, the Order of White Eagle, in Warsaw Monday Nov. 10, 2003, and she was announced as the 2003 winner of the Jan Karski award for Valor and Courage. She has officially been designated a national hero in Poland and schools are named in her honor. Annual Irena Sendler days are celebrated throughout Europe and the United States.

In 2007, she was nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. At a special session in Poland's upper house of Parliament, President Lech Kaczynski announced the unanimous resolution to honor Irena Sendler for rescuing "the most defenseless victims of the Nazi ideology: the Jewish children." He referred to her as a "great heroine who can be justly named for the Nobel Peace Prize. She deserves great respect from our whole nation."

During the ceremony Elzbieta Ficowska, who was just six months old when she was saved by Irena Sendler, read out a letter on her behalf: "Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory," Irena Sendler said in the letter, "Over a half-century has passed since the hell of the Holocaust, but its spectre still hangs over the world and doesn't allow us to forget."

This lovely, courageous woman was one of the most dedicated and active workers in aiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Her courage enabled not only the survival of 2,500 Jewish children but also of the generations of their descendants.

The Nobel Prize recipient, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, has dedicated his life to ensuring that none of us forget what happened to the Jews. He wrote:

"In those times there was darkness everywhere. In heaven and on earth, all the gates of compassion seemed to have been closed. The killer killed and the Jews died and the outside world adopted an attitude either of complicity or of indifference. Only a few had the courage to care ..."

- Louis Bulow

On 12 May 2008, Sendler died. In July 2010, the words 'Jews out' were sprayed on her grave.

Please remember the Canteen is here to honor, support and entertain our troops and their families.  This is a politics-free zone!  Thanks for helping us in our mission! 

[Enterprise]

She’s an awesome hero and THEN some!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, Enterprise...she was, indeed, an awesome lady.

[Kathy in Alaska]

~ Hall of Heroes: Irena Sendler ~

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[Kathy in Alaska]

Hello Veterans, wherever you are!!

[left that other site]

Hi Everybody!

(((HUGS)))

[Gumdrop]

She did not receive the Nobel prize, It was awarded to Al Gore.

[PROCON]

Thanks for introducing us to and honoring this remarkable lady, Kathy!

[The Mayor]

May 15

Exploring the Stars

Bible in a Year:

• 2 Kings 22–23
• John 4:31–54

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one.

Isaiah 40:26

In 2021, a multination effort led to the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope—deployed nearly a million miles from Earth to better investigate the universe. This marvel will peer into deep space and examine the stars and other celestial wonders.

This is indeed a fascinating astronomical piece of technology, and if everything works, it will provide us with amazing photos and information. But its mission isn’t new. In fact, the prophet Isaiah described searching the stars when he said, “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one” (Isaiah 40:26). “Night after night” they speak of our Creator who hurled this imperceptibly immense universe into existence (Psalm 19:2)—and with it the countless luminous bodies that silently grace our night sky (v. 3).

And it’s God Himself who decided how many of the shining objects there are: “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name” (Psalm 147:4). When mankind sends complicated, fascinating probes to explore the universe, we can enjoy with spellbound wonder the discoveries they make, because each observation points back to the One who made the solar system and everything beyond it. Yes, the “heavens declare the glory of God” (19:1)—stars and all.

Reflect & Pray

How do the stars and the entire universe speak of God and His creative ways? What thoughts and emotions strike you as you think about His power?

Heavenly Father, thank You for creating such an amazing universe for me to enjoy.

[dfwgator]

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkm6wio3t48

[Kathy in Alaska]

You are correct! What a sick joke is albore...and the Nobel!

She achieved such fame that a movement began that aimed to put her name forward for the Nobel Peace Prize. And so it came to be that at 97 years young Irena Sendler was nominated for the 2007 addition.

She didn’t win.

The prize instead was shared by Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their work in raising public awareness to the dangers of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

It seems the world is faced with a new great peril; one that poses an existential threat to every living thing on this planet. Evidently, the Nobel panel thought that this “climate emergency” was more current than the astonishing heroism of a Polish woman 65 years previous and thus, more deserving of the accolade.

Time has been kinder to Mr Gore than it has to the wild predictions he made in his 2006 film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, which led to him being awarded the Peace Prize. They’ve proven spurious, alarmist, fantastical; far removed from the mundane reality of the actual temperature readings post 2006. But present needs have seen to it that a collective amnesia has swept over the world of polite opinion, as if it a were a storm purifying scrutiny, as well as apparently resetting the doomsday clock. Mr Gore and his backers have emerged from this storm quite unscathed. Some of the critics, however, must always be braced for backlash, often facing slurs against which there is little recourse, an inhibiting factor which dissuades many from entering the fray.

Like many high-profile people, Mr Gore, in spite of his proud claims of being carbon neutral, regularly uses private jets. What he really means by “carbon neutral” is that he ‘offsets’ his emissions – compensating for his extensive carbon footprint by donating money to reduce emissions elsewhere. One wonders about the efficacy of ‘carbon offsets’, which can take up to 30 years to take effect, in a world “on the brink of environmental collapse”. But carbon offsets are essentially a rich man’s fancy. Rich being the operative word. Mr Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, is the largest shareholder of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). His estimated worth is $325 million. Most of which he’s accrued since leaving party politics and taking on the mantle of international climate change guru.

[radu]

Greetings to all at the Canteen!

To all our military men and women, past and present,

THANK YOU
for your service!

What an amazing woman!

[luvie]

What a completely deserving Nobel Prize recipient. AND hero! God rest her soul!

[luvie]

Hey there, radu!

Are ya rested up after the two-in-a-row early wake-ups? My 2nd one is tomorrow. And I’m already so sleepy, I know I’m going to bed early tonight. I’m worthless. LOL!

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening, ML...((HUGS))...did you and Blue get to have a Mother’s Day adventure?

[radu]

Howdy, luvie.

I got to sleep in today but it wasn’t a restful day. It was dry and they say i’s supposed to rain tomorrow so I broke out the mower late this afternoon. Got more done than I expected to and am pooped now.

I have to get up a little early tomorrow for my annual “wellness check” so will hit the sack earlier than usual. At least I don’t have to get up as early as yesterday and Friday.

[luvie]

Thank goodness you get a bit of a break on the time you have to get up in the morning. I’m going to try for the same time I got up this morning...or at least when I set my alarm for...7:30am. But I know for sure I’m not coming close to being a total night owl tonight. LOL!

[radu]

I won’t be a total night owl tonight either. I’m pretty beat but am glad to have gotten as much done as I did today. Less to finish up Tuesday if it doesn’t rain a lot tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a little cooler then and that’ll be nice. I can start mowing earlier. I started late today because it was so steamy.

[radu]

Howdy, Kathy.

Pretty day up there today but it sure got windy late this morning, turning the lake from a mirror to very choppy in the blink of an eye.

Several antsy pilots got out to take off from the lake this morning. Just couldn’t wait any longer. LOL

Only a couple of spots of snow left where the largest piles were. Can’t wait to see everything green up again. I imagine y’all are looking forward to it too.

[The Mayor]

She was a hero, her story tells it, very brave for sure!