Poland: Life in a Jar, rescuing Jewish children from the Nazis

Irena Sendler, a Catholic Polish social worker, went to work as a plumbing/sewer specialist in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation. Using this cover and with a network of 25 others (almost all social workers, and of whom 24 were women and one, a man) Irena smuggled children out of the ghetto. This network saved these children from eventual death in the Nazi concentration camps. Infants she carried out in her tool box, larger children she put in a burlap sack. She made the journey into the ghetto with a dog which she had trained to bark at the Nazi soldiers. The barking was an ingenious cover for the children's noise and increased the probability of the soliders just waving Irena through the check-point.

 

Irena kept a list of all the children she smuggled out in a glass jar, which she had buried in a friend's garden.

 

Irena and her network rescued 2,500 children before Irena was discovered. The Nazis tortured her, broke her leg and arm and she was scheduled for execution when the Polish resistance  bribed a guard and helped her to escape.

 

Irena's story was brought to light by a group of US students working on a history project. More about the story can be read here at Life in a Jar: the Irena Sendler Project.