Irena Sendler Facts & Worksheets

• Men, women and children smuggled and traded illegally, while private workshops made things to sell discreetly on the 'Aryan' side of the city. Children alone snuck food across the ghetto wall by the hundreds, often multiple times a day, returning with goods as heavy as they were. Smuggling was often the only way to survive in the ghetto, where unemployment and extreme poverty caused famine. 
• In the first year and a half, hundreds of Polish Jews and some Romani from smaller cities and the countryside were placed into the ghetto, although many perished from typhus and malnutrition, keeping the population steady.
• Sendler, deeply affected by the suffering of the Jewish community, became increasingly involved in efforts to help those trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. As a member of the Social Welfare Department, Sendler was granted special permits to enter the ghetto to check for typhus, which the Germans feared would spread. They transported drugs, hygiene products, clothing, food and other supplies into the ghetto under the guise of sanitary inspections.
• Sendler was inspired to expand the ghetto assistance operation by her friends, acquaintances and former co-workers who ended up on the Jewish side of the wall. Sendler and other social workers helped Jews escape or smuggled infants and small children out of the ghetto.
• In the summer of 1942, evacuating Jews and helping them survive became a priority. This work was extremely dangerous at the time because, since October 1941, helping Jews in German-occupied Poland constituted a capital offence for the helper and their family. Nonetheless, although Sendler's life was often at risk, she continued her efforts to save as many lives as possible.

Role in the Żegota and the Children's Rescue Efforts

• Sendler played a significant role in Żegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, which was an underground organisation established on 4 December 1942, formed to rescue Jews in Poland during World War II. It was the continuation of an earlier assistance organisation, the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews, that was founded on 27 September 1942, by Polish Catholic activists Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz.
• Żegota, consisting of members from various political and social backgrounds, offered food, medical assistance and financial support, and forged identification papers to numerous Polish Jews who were hiding within the German-occupied territory. It had approximately one hundred cells and collaborated with the Home Army to create forged documents. It aided in the rescue of approximately 60,000 Jews and offered support to a total of around 25,000 individuals.
• Sendler worked as a coordinator for the Welfare Department network in Żegota from January 1943 onwards. They allocated financial grants provided by the organisation. Consistent payments, however inadequate, improved their capacity to support the Jews in hiding.
• Aleksandra Dargiel, a manager at the Central Welfare Council (RGO), established a children's division for Żegota in August 1943. In September, Dargiel resigned because she was feeling overburdened with her RGO duties and suggested Sendler as her replacement. Sendler assumed control of the children's division in October 1943.
• Sendler used her contacts and resources to facilitate the rescue and relocation of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. She led a network of social workers, church members and local families in the rescue of Jewish children from the ghetto.
• Sendler and her colleagues did everything they could to get the children out of the ghetto. They often hid them in Polish homes, convents and schools. Every child was given a new name and put in homes where they would be safe from the horrors of the Holocaust. They concealed lists of the undisclosed children in jars to monitor their true and altered identities. The goal was to reunite the children with their biological relatives, if they were still alive following the war.
• During WWII, Sendler participated in the Polish Underground Resistance under the Home Army, which was the main resistance organisation in German-occupied Poland.
• The resistance significantly impeded German supply routes to the Eastern Front by damaging 1/8 of all rail cargo. They also supplied British intelligence agencies with 43% of all reports from occupied Europe.
• Sendler collaborated with the Polish underground to coordinate and execute various operations aimed at rescuing Jewish children and families from the Warsaw Ghetto. Secret codes, safe houses and forged documents were just a few of the clandestine methods employed by Sendler and her collaborators to ensure the safety of the rescued children. Each operation required meticulous planning and precision to evade detection by the occupying forces.
• American historian Debórah Dwork stated that Sendler was the motivation and driving force behind the entire network that rescued Jewish children. She was able to rescue around 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.
• On 18 October 1943, Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo (official secret police of Nazi Germany) for hiding the names of the Jewish children with her companion, Janina Grabowska. If the Gestapo were to obtain this knowledge, all children would be at risk, yet Grabowska was never investigated. Even after suffering horrific abuse at the hands of the Gestapo, Sendler did not desert her friends or the kidnapped children.
• She was incarcerated in Pawiak jail, where she underwent additional interrogations and physical assaults. On 13 November, she was transferred to a different site for execution by firing squad. She was saved from death when the German guards carrying her accepted a bribe and freed her before reaching the execution site. 
• Sendler was released with the help of Maria Palester, a colleague from the Welfare Department, who secured the required sums from Żegota leader Julian Grobelny for a bribe.
• After her release, Sendler decided to stay concealed under the identity of Klara Dąbrowska, a nurse. She resumed her role as manager of the children's division at Żegota in December 1943. She served as a nurse at a field hospital during the Warsaw Uprising, when several Jews were concealed. She worked as a nurse until the Germans departed Warsaw, withdrawing in the face of advancing Soviet forces.