Irena Sendler - Rescuer of the Children of Warsaw

Imagine being trapped and injured just because of your religion. Every day your friends, family and neighbours are taken away to be killed. This was the life for Jewish people in World War 2 and Irena Sendler planned to stop it.

Irena Sendler was a Christian born in Warsaw Poland in 1910. Her father, a doctor treated poor people including the Jew's who could not afford to pay him back. When an outbreak of typhus broke out many doctors refused to treat these people in fear of catching the disease themselves, but Irena's father carried on treating the poor.

He encouraged Irena to help people no matter who they were. Sadly, he died when Irena was only seven years old. Irena was kicked out of school for a year and kicked out of university for three years for protesting for the Jew's. She worked as a social worker operating canteens supplying food, water and financial aid for poor people and thanks to Irena's work also supplied clothing, money and medication for the Jews.

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When World War 2 broke out 400 000 Jews were forced into a sixteen block area called the Warsaw Ghetto. Irena was appalled by the conditions and decided she had to help make a change. With a group of friends Irena started forging documents to help the Jew's avoid getting caught by the Nazi's. Between 1939 and 1942 Irena and her friends were able to forge 3000 documents saving Jewish families from death. But Irena decided that she could do more for the Jew's. She joined Zegota an underground resistance force, fighting against the Nazi's.

Irena was head of the children's department and began her work at once. Irena was a nurse so to get into the Ghetto she told the German's she was there to stop diseases spreading. She and ten other brave people went into the Ghetto to smuggle out the children. Irena said that the hardest part was getting the family to part with the child. "Can you recall they will?" Irena recalled the parents asking but she could only guarantee that if they stayed there, they would die. By the time Irena had smuggled 2500 Jewish children out of the ghetto and into foster homes the Nazi's became aware of her actions. She was captured and tortured although she never revealed anything to the Germans. She was sentenced to death but her friends at Zegota bribed the guards to let her go. She spent the rest of the war undercover but never stopped trying to help people in need.

After the war Irena Sendler settled back down, no one knew what she had done until.

• Small people can do big things
• She saved lots of Jewish kids and generations after