Irena's Children

by Tilar J. Mazzeo

“we threw our grenades and saw German blood”: Transcripts of the Eichmann trial, Nizkor Project, www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-025-04.html.

  “the first real entertainment the Germans had provided”: David Danow, The Spirit of Carnival: Magical Realism and the Grotesque, Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2005.

  As apartment buildings exploded, eager bets were laid: Ibid.

  “Give me some addresses where we can take people who make it to the Aryan side”: Teresa Prekerowa, Żegota: Commission d’aide aux Juifs.

  Can Żegota transmit the addresses to the Jewish combat organization?: Ibid.

  Irena waited at sewer manholes: Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej, 127.

  Ala was working directly with him and with the others in the Jewish resistance: Jonas Turkow, Ala Gólomb Grynberg.

  On May 8, 1943, close to the end: Some sources alternatively list this date as May 9.

  “There was no air, only black, choking smoke and heavy, burning heat”: Marek Edelman, “The Ghetto Fights.”

  “The flames cling to our clothes”: Ibid.

  “Brother, Please Help!”: Ibid.

  “half-walked, half-crawled for twenty hours”: “Marek Edelman: Last Surviving Leader of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Against the Nazis,” Independent, October 7, 2009, www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/marek-edelman-last-surviving-leader-of-the-1943-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-against-the-nazis-1798644.html.

  “Jews, bandits, and subhumans were destroyed”: Marian Apfelbaum, Two Flags: Return to the Warsaw Ghetto, New York: Gefen Publishing, 2007, 317.

  The governor-general proudly reported: Ibid.

  The Hotel Polski was a seedy four-story building at number 29, Długa Street: For a more complete account of the Hotel Polski affair, see Abraham Shulman, The Case of Hotel Polski: An Account of One of the Most Enigmatic Episodes of World War II, New York: Holocaust Library, 1982.

  Rumor had it, too, that the hotel was being set up as a kind of neutral staging ground: “Adam Żurawin,” Warsaw Ghetto Database, Polish Center for Holocaust Research, http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?mod=view_record&rid=27032003204554000076&tid=osoby&lang=en.

  Irena was convinced that Wiera was a Gestapo informer: Andrew Nagorski, “ ‘Vera Gran: The Accused’ by Agata Tuszynska,” (review), Washington Post, March 22, 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/opinion/vera-gran-the-accused-by-agata-tuszynskatranslated-from-the-french-of-isabelle-jannes-kalinowski-by-charles-ruas/2013/03/22/6dce6116-75f2-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html.

  “Jewess, before the war, a cabaret dancer”: Vera Gran claimed after the war that she had not been a collaborator, and the topic has been the subject of some controversy, as discussed in Andrew Nagorski’s review, among others. In her recollections late in life, Vera Gran also accused the “pianist” Władysław Szpilman himself of having been a collaborator. This is generally understood by scholars as a diversionary tactic and possibly as a reflection of Vera Gran’s advanced age and decades of animosity. The publication of the biography prompted Szpilman’s son to protest the libel of his father. In 1983, Irena Sendler also made a denunciation of Vera Gran in written testimony to Professor Dr. Horn Maurycy, director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (file A.051/488/80): www.veragran.com/sendler1pdf.pdf and www.veragran.com/sendler2pdf.pdf. Jonas Turkow, saved by Ala Gołąb-Grynberg and the author of the only biography of her, also made a denunciation after the war of Vera Gran for known collaborationist activities.

  “Wiera Gran, a cabaret actress . . . worked for the Gestapo alongside Leon Skosowski”: “New Book Full of ‘Lies and Libel’ Says Son of Władysław Szpilman,” Polskie Radio, broadcast and transcript, November 5, 2011, www2.polskieradio.pl/eo/dokument.aspx?iid=142897.

  “A wonderful man died a martyr’s death”: Irena Sendler, “Youth Associations of the Warsaw Ghetto.”

  There the prisoners were set to work fabricating German military uniforms: Lawrence N. Powell, Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke’s Louisiana, Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press, 2002, 249; Deborah Charniewitch-Lubel, “Kolno Girls in Auschwitz,” in Kolno Memorial Book, eds. Aizik Remba and Benjamin Halevy, Tel Aviv: Kolner Organization and Sifirat Poalim, 1971, www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/kolno/kole056.html.

  Chaja Estera Stein was the first of Irena’s own two foster daughters: Jadwiga Rytlowa, “Chaja Estera Stein (Teresa Tucholska-Körner): ‘The First Child of Irena Sendler,’” Museum of the History of Polish Jews, September 14, 2010, www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/cms/your-stories/360,chaja-estera-stein-teresa-tucholska-k-rner-the-first-child-of-irena-sendler-/.

  Zofia and Stanisław had four children of their own: Irena Sendler, “O Pomocy Żydom.”

  CHAPTER 14: ALEJA SZUCHA

  Regina Mikelberg, along with her sister: Ibid. See also Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “The Stolarski Family,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/family/123,the-stolarski-family/.

  This is a list of our children; hide it somewhere: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “Irena Sendler,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/cms/biografia-83/.

  Irena at last convinced the agents that Janka was an innocent out-of-town visitor: Irena Sendler, “O Pomocy Żydom.”

  That was what people on the streets of Warsaw called the squat gray compound: Wanda D. Lerek, Hold on to Life, Dear: Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor, n.p.: W. D. Lereck, 1996.

  Soon cries of terror came from the hallway: Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team, “Gestapo Headquarters: Szucha Avenue and Pawiak Prison—Warsaw,” 2007, www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/poland/pawaiak.html; although a nonacademic site, the resource includes a strong collection of historical photos of Pawiak and an excellent summary.

  “One could hear curt questions, the murmur of low answers”: Ibid.

  On the first day of their arrest, prisoners were severely beaten: Anna Czuperska-Śliwicka, Cztery Lata Ostrego Dyżuru: Wspomnienia z Pawiaka, 1930–1944, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1965; see also Pawiak Museum, Warsaw, exhibition materials, 2013.

  Those destined for the concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz: Regina Domańska, Pawiak, Więzienie Gestapo: Kronika 1939–1944, Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1978; see also Anna Czuperska-Śliwicka, Cztery Lata Ostrego Dyżuru and Pawiak Museum, Warsaw, exhibition materials, 2013.

  In her cell that first night, Irena and her neighbor Basia Dietrich: “Barbara Dietrych-Wachowska,” online biography, http://pl.cyclopaedia.net/wiki/Barbara_Dietrych-Wachowska. Some sources say that Helena Pęchcin and Barbara Dietrych-Wachowska were arrested as early as August. Other sources say that the two women were arrested only days before Irena. But those who knew Irena Sendler personally report that the three women were arrested the same day in the roundup that resulted as the breach of the laundry post office. Whatever the case, what is certain is that Irena Sendler and Basia Dietrich shared a cell at Pawiak at this time. Thanks also for this research to the late Yoram Gross, personal communication.

  By the spring of 1943, when the Insurgent Special Forces were combined with Home Army operations: Mirosław Roguszewski, Powstańcze Oddziały Specjalne “Jerzyki” w latach 1939–1945, Bydgoszcz: n.p., 1994.

  The window of the cramped office into which she was led looked out over the ruins: Anna Czuperska-Śliwicka, Cztery Lata Ostrego Dyżuru.

  “We are doing everything we can to get you out of that hell”: Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Code Name: Żegota.

  Before long, the bones of Irena’s legs and feet were broken: “Gestapo Torture of Jews in Warsaw Prisons Reported, List of Guilty Nazis,” October 19, 1942, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, www.jta.org/1942/10/19/archive/gestapo-torture-of-jews-in-warsaw-prisons-reported-list-of-guilty-nazis-published.

  “One could have an impression that this was an ambulance”: Pawiak Museum, exhibition materials, 2013.

  “They weren’t just worried ab
out me”: Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Code Name: Żegota, 58.

  “She’s at Szucha, and perhaps already in Pawiak”: Jerzy Korczak, Oswajanie Strachu.

  So was the indefatigable Ala Gołąb-Grynberg: Jonas Turkow, Ala Gólomb Grynberg.

  Then nearly fifteen thousand slave laborers lay down together: “Aktion Erntefest (Operation “Harvest Festival”),” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005222.

  Helena was, Irena always said, “full of initiatives”: Teresa Prekerowa, Żegota: Commission d’aide aux Juifs.

  On November 25, Jadwiga was checking in on some Jewish refugees: Władysław Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej: Polacy z pomocą Żydom, 1939–1945, Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2007, 370.

  Basia and Zbigniew were executed that day: “Irenę Sendlerową i Barbarę Ditrich: niezwykłe sąsiadki z ul. Ludwiki wspomina Barbara Jankowska-Tobijasiewicz,” Urząd Dzielnicy Wola, January 28, 2010, file 46/347, www.wola.waw.pl/page/341,internetowe-wydanie-kuriera-wolskiego—-wszystkie-numery.html?date=2010-01-00&artykul_id=394; contains testimony of Barbara Jankowska-Tobijasiewicz, who lived in the apartment building of Irena Sendler and Basia Dietrich as a child.

  Jadwiga was executed in the ruins of the ghetto: Marcin Mierzejewski, “Sendler’s Children,” Warsaw Voice, September 25, 2003, www.warsawvoice.pl/WVpage/pages/article.php/3568/article. See also Yad Vashem, “Deneko Family: Rescue Story,” The Righteous Among the Nations, http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4014550.

  “One day, I heard my name”: Teresa Prekerowa, Żegota: Commission d’aide aux Juifs.

  CHAPTER 15: IRENA’S EXECUTION

  “You are free. Save yourself fast”: Ibid.

  “You lousy thug, get lost,” he snarled, and he pounded his fist into her mouth: Irena Sendler, autobiographical notes, ZIH archives, Materialy Zabrane w Latach, 1995–2003, sygn. S/353, file IS-04-85-R.

  “I could not go on”: Ibid.

  “I was so naïve,” Irena said afterward: Irena Sendler, “O Pomocy Żydom.”

  “We died inside from fear,” Irena said simply: Ibid.

  “I do not know how long it took—minutes seemed like an eternity—until we heard the sound of running shoes, moving away”: Ibid.

  “They were looking for you again”: Ibid.

  in Home Army files on her there was a description of her: Government Delegation for Poland, archival files, signature 202 / II-43, Department of the Interior, rpt. Krzysztofa Komorowskiego, Polityka i Walka: Konspiracja Zbrojna Ruchu Narodowego, 1939–1945, Warsawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza “Rytm,” 2000; see Zołnierze Przeklieci Nacjonalizmzabija, December 20, 2013, https://zolnierzeprzekleci.wordpress.com/listy-nienawisci.

  She stayed for a time with her uncle near Nowy Sącz: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “Irena Sendler,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/cms/biography-83/.

  she spent some time back in Praga: Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper’s Wife, 196.

  Maria Palester, with her weekly bridge games: Halina Grubowska, personal correspondence/interview.

  Maria’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Małgorzata Palester: Janina Goldhar, personal correspondence.

  “Żegota sent me letters so that I would be assured that they were doing everything possible to get me out”: “Fundacja Taubego na rzecz Życia i Kultury Żydowskiej przedstawia Ceremonię Wręczenia Nagrody im. Ireny Sendlerowej,” program 2013.

  “They only knew from my letters that the Germans did not find the index”: Ibid. See also Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej.

  Zofia and Stanisław’s house: Joanna Papuzińska-Beksiak, Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego, oral history archives, January 13, 2012, http://ahm.1944.pl/Joanna_Papuzinska-Beksiak/1. The details here are drawn largely from this oral history interview.

  Irena swung into action and moved Estera: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “Chaja Estera Stein,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/cms/your-stories/360,chaja-estera-stein-teresa-tucholska-k-rner-the-first-child-of-irena-sendler-/.

  Julian and Halina Grobelny owned a small country house: Yad Vashem, “Grobelny Family: Rescue Story,” The Righteous Among the Nations, db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4034600.

  Dr. Majkowski smuggled extra food and supplies into the prison: “Życie Juliana Grobelnego,” RelatioNet, October 3, 2007, http://grju93brpo.blogspot.ca/2007/10/ycie-juliana-grobelnego.html.

  Żegota—for another immense bribe—arranged for Julian’s escape: Teresa Prekerowa, Żegota: Commission d’aide aux Juifs.

  the apartment of Stefan Wichliński: Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej.

  “I had to steal my dying mother from our home”: “Irena Sendlerowa,” Association of “Children of the Holocaust” in Poland.

  “Which is the dead woman’s daughter?”: Ibid.

  “It was a desperate SOS”: Ibid.

  the women dug up the lists buried in Jaga’s garden: “Irena Sendlerowa,” Association of “Children of the Holocaust” in Poland.

  CHAPTER 16: WARSAW FIGHTING

  Janka Grabowska’s husband, Józef: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “The Stolarski Family,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/family/123,the-stolarski-family/.

  Ultimately, the Soviets also refused to allow the other Allies: Alexandra Richie, Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2013, review by Irene Tomaszewski, Cosmopolitan Review 6, no. 1 (2014), http://cosmopolitanreview.com/warsaw-1944.

  In the words of one general, Władysław Anders: Ibid.

  Luftwaffe planes, marked on their underbellies with ominous black crosses: Zygmunt Skarbek-Kruszewski, Bellum Vobiscum: War Memoirs, ed. Jurek Zygmunt Skarbek, n.p: Skarbek Consulting Pty Ltd, 2001.

  “almost all Warsaw is a sea of flames”: Diary of Hans Frank, National Archives of the United States, Washington, DC, publication T992, microfilm, www.archives.gov/research/captured-german-records/microfilm/t992.pdf.

  “They shot at us when we passed”: Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Poland, New York: Howard Fertig, 1982.

  Dr. Maria Skokowska, and a young Jewish woman named Jadzia Pesa Rozenholc: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “Irena Sendler,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/cms/biography-83/.

  The next day they went to work setting up an emergency field hospital: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “Maria Palester,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/family/434,palester-maria/.

  Kryštof Palester disappeared to rejoin his old “Parasol” battalion: Memoirs of Andrzej Rafal Ulankiewicz, “ ‘Warski II’: Battalion ‘Parasol’ (Umbrella),” qtd. Warsaw Uprising 1944, www.warsawuprising.com/witness/parasol.htm. One of those young women was Maria Stypułkowska, code name “Kama.” She had joined the Home Army at seventeen as a messenger, and was already a legendary crack assassin and saboteur. The execution of Franz Kutschera, the German SS and Reich’s police chief in Warsaw, who was killed on February 1, 1944, was Maria’s handiwork. Maria survived the war to tell her stories; see, for example, her video testimony, “Maria ‘Kama’ Stypułkowska-Chojecka Popiera Komorowskiego—a Ty?,” recorded by Bronisław Komorowski, May 27, 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOQaeuv9b6Y.

  “She was a totally different person,” Irena remembered: Irena Sendler, “Youth Associations of the Warsaw Ghetto.”

  Drunken SS officers made forays into basement shelters: Zygmunt Skarbek-Kruszewski, Bellum Vobiscum.

  A German soldier ran his bayonet through Irena’s leg: Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej.

  Jaga Piotrowska rushed into burning buildings during the destruction of her street: Archives of Mirosława Pałaszewska an
d personal correspondence.

  The razing of Warsaw included the destruction of Jaga’s own house: Archives of Mirosława Pałaszewska.

  Thirty refugees were hiding in the makeshift medical clinic with Irena and Adam and the Palester family: Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “Irena Sendler,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/cms/biography-83/.

  It oozed pus: Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej.

  “She treated me like a daughter,” Anna said of Irena later: Magdelena Grochowska, “Lista Sendlerowej.”

  “Even after the final liquidation [of the ghetto], we clung to fairy tales about underground bunkers”: Ada Pagis, “A Rare Gem,” Haaretz, May 9, 2008, www.haaretz.com/a-rare-gem-1.245497; review of Ir betoch ir [City Within a City], diary of Batia Temkin-Berman, trans. Uri Orlev, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2008.

  According to Yad Vashem, only five thousand children out of that million survived the war: The Last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak. Ed. Wiktoria Śliwówska, trans. Julian and Fay Bussgang. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999.

  “She never talked about those things again,” Irena said later: Irena Sendler, “Youth Associations of the Warsaw Ghetto.”

  CHAPTER 17: HOW THE STORIES ENDED

  The human heart is not symmetrical or neat, either: Arash Kheradvar and Gianni Pedrizzetti, Vortex Formation in the Cardiovascular System, New York: Springer, 2012.

  Irena never forgot Józef’s words when he gave her Piotr: Irena Sendler, “Youth Associations of the Warsaw Ghetto.”

  “My birth certificate is a small silver spoon engraved with my name and birth date”: “Elżbieta Ficowska,” testimony, Association of “Children of the Holocaust” in Poland, www.dzieciholocaustu.org.pl/szab58.php?s=en_myionas_11.php.

  “If the aunt had not seen the address on a package”: Michał Głowiński, The Black Seasons.

  “[But] I am still unable to write about my stay in the Warsaw ghetto”: Ibid.

  Ala’s small child, Rami Gołąb-Grynberg, reunited after the war with her uncle: personal correspondence.