Irena's Children

by Tilar J. Mazzeo

  In 1945, Warsaw was bleak and treeless: A. M. Rosenthal, “The Trees of Warsaw,” New York Times, www.nytimes.com/1983/08/07/magazine/the-trees-of-warsaw.html.

  Irena’s wartime journals and account books, like so much else in the city, were lost: “Fundacja Taubego na rzecz Życia i Kultury Żydowskiej przedstawia Ceremonię Wręczenia Nagrody im. Ireny Sendlerowej,” 2013 program. Also archives of Mirosława Pałaszewska and personal correspondence.

  Irena gave the list to Dr. Adolf Berman: Ibid. See also obituary, “Irena Sendler, Saviour of Children in the Warsaw Ghetto, Died on May 12th, Aged 98,” Economist, May 24, 2008, www.economist.com/node/11402658.

  “Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes”: “Irena Sendlerowa,” Association of “Children of the Holocaust” in Poland.

  Jaga Piotrowska and Jan Dobraczyński also made their own lists of the Jewish children: Archives of Mirosława Pałaszewska and personal correspondence; also Michał Głowiński, The Black Seasons, 87.

  “When Poland was liberated in 1945, a Jewish community was established”: Archives of Mirosława Pałaszewska; also Michał Głowiński, The Black Seasons, 86.

  “During the conversation,” Jaga said, “we were told”: Ibid.

  When Mietek returned to Poland from a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, Irena was already five months pregnant: Iwona Rojek, “To była matka całego świata—córka Ireny Sendler opowiedziała nam o swojej mamie,” Echo Dnia Śilętokrzyskie, December 9, 2012, www.echodnia.eu/swietokrzyskie/wiadomosci/kielce/art/8561374,to-byla-matka-calego-swiata-corka-ireny-sendler-opowiedziala-nam-o-swojej-mamie,id,t.html.

  his Jewish mother, Leokadia, was furious: Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej.

  “the brightest star in the black sky of the occupation”: Michał Głowiński, The Black Seasons.

  CODA: THE DISAPPEARING STORY OF IRENA SENDLER, 1946–2008

  “There are times when she avoids me,” Irena wrote of that long postwar friendship: Irena Sendler, “Youth Associations of the Warsaw Ghetto.”

  “In my dreams,” Irena said, “I still hear the cries”: Joseph Bottum, “Good People, Evil Times: The Women of Żegota,” First Things, April 17, 2009, www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2009/04/good-people-evil-times-the-women-of-Zegota.

  When Adam Celnikier died of heart trouble in 1961: Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej, 20.

  Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial organization in Israel, awarded Irena Sendler: Alexandra Sližová, “Osudy zachráněných dětí Ireny Sendlerové.”

  So, too, in time were Jaga Piotrowska, Maria Kukulska: “Fundacja Taubego na rzecz Życia i Kultury Żydowskiej przedstawia Ceremonię Wręczenia Nagrody im. Ireny Sendlerowej,” 2013 program.

  “We estimate (today after 40 years it is difficult to determine it exactly) the number of children”: Magdelena Grochowska, “Lista Sendlerowej.”

  “Every time people said that she saved 2,500 Jewish children’s lives”: Yoram Gross, personal correspondence.

  “I want everyone to know that, while I was coordinating our efforts, we were about twenty”: Joachim Wieler, “The Long Path to Irena Sendler.”

  After the war, when Irena made a list of all the people in Warsaw: Magdelena Grochowska, “Lista Sendlerowej.”

  “If we knew,” he told the crowd that day, “the names of all the noble people who risked their lives to save Jews”: Hans G. Furth, “One Million Polish Rescuers of Hunted Jews?,” Journal of Genocide Research 1, no. 2 (1999): 227–32.

  “I only have recourse to the memories burned into my mind by the events of those days”: Irena Sendler, autobiographical notes, ZIH archives, Materialy Zabrane w Latach, 1995–2003, sygn. S/353, file IS-04-85-R.

  In 2003, some of the children she helped to save wrote a joint letter: Aleksandra Zawłocka, “The Children of Ms. Sendler,” Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, www.polish-jewish-heritage.org/eng/The_Children_of_Ms_Sendler.htm; also Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “Irena Sendler,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/cms/biography-83/.

  “Heroes,” she said, “do extraordinary things”: Scott T. Allison, George R. Goethals, Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, 24.

  “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history”: Anil Dutta Mishra, Inspiring Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi, Delhi: Concept Publishing, 2008, 36.

  Additional sources consulted for this book include: Halina Grubowska, Ta, Która Ratowała Żydów: rzecz o Irenie Sendlerowej, Warsaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma, 2014; Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, “Powstanie Ligi do Walki z Rasizmem w 1946 r.,” Więź (1998): 238–45; Tomasz Szarota, “Ostatnia Droga Doktora: Rozmowa z Ireną Sendlerową,” Historia, vol. 21, May 24, 1997, 94; Janina Sacharewicz, “Irena Sendlerowa: Działanie z Potrzeby Serca,” Słowo Żydowskie, April 20, 2007; Mary Skinner, Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers (documentary film), 2011; “Bo Ratowała Życie,” Gość Warszawski, no. 6, February 11, 2007; and Abhijit Thite, The Other Schindler . . . Irena Sendler: Savior of the Holocaust Children, trans. Priya Gokhale, Pune, India: Ameya Prakashan, 2010.

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