Remembering Irene Sendler

In 2007 Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  She was 97.  The award was given to former Vice President Al Gore for his slide show on Global Warming.  The effect of Sendler’s nomination was to alert the world of her presence and impact, some 65 years after she demonstrated unparalleled compassion and courage. 

During WWII she smuggled 2500 Jewish kids/infants out of the Warsaw ghetto in Poland.

She devised a very creative and elaborate plan using a typhoid scare and the sewer system as a means to secure their freedom and survival.

She was caught by the Nazis.  She was tortured and severely beaten.  The beatings broke her arms and legs and left her crippled for life.  She never revealed even one, minuet piece of information to her vicious captors.  She was sentenced to death but escaped when a guard was bribed.  She spent the remaining years of the war in hiding as the Gestapo relentlessly hunted for her.

Irena kept the names of all the kids she guided to safety hidden in a glass jar.  After the war, she tried to reunite the families even though most of the parents had been systematically slaughtered.

Irena Sendler died on May 12, 2008 at the age of 98.

Forgiveness on this front remains, in all likelihood, the sole province of the Almighty.   While we may not possess the divine nature necessary to forgive these monsters we nevertheless have the responsibility to never forget.  We must never forget the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated or the atrocities of Pol Pot, Chairman Mao Tse-tung and the other butchers that followed Hitler - And it is high time we start remembering and memorializing Irena Sendler as those in the Middle East make plans for exacting their own perverted brand of genocide.