Page 44 - Issue4-November2017_online_opt
P. 44
IRENA SENDLERTHEEXTRAORDINARYSTORYOF
Irena’s Children by Tilar J. Mazzeo: a Book Review
SthominegS by Rabbi Elchonon Oberstein
need
ttaoilboer Like most of you, I have read about righteous gentiles who
made. risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. In-
variably, their stories are told from the Jewish vantage
ionnSeuorfantcheemiS. point. I want to take you on a journey back into that hor-
rible time to see the things through the eyes of decent Pol-
Don’t settle for a one-size-fits-all policy. ish gentiles. You will glimpse a story very different from
At Wealcatch Insurance every policy the ones we are more familiar with.
is custom made. Irena Sendler was a Polish woman who saved children from
the Warsaw ghetto. Moreover, unlike the righteous gentiles we
AUTO • HOME • COMMERCIAL • LIFE are used to hearing about, who acted alone, she was part of a
large network of gentiles who risked their lives and saved more
410.653.3053 • info@wealcatchmd.com Jews than Schindler or other, more famous, people. Together
with her friends and coworkers, Irena smuggled infants out of
the Warsaw ghetto in suitcases and wooden boxes, past German
guards and Jewish police traitors. She brought out toddlers and
schoolchildren through the city’s foul and dangerous sewers.
She worked with Jewish teenagers, many of them girls of 14 or
15, who fought bravely and died in the ghetto uprising.
Before she was caught and tortured by the Gestapo (saved
from certain death by a massive bribe given by the Polish under-
ground to a Nazi), Irena saved over 2,500 children, all of whose
true identities she recorded so that she could return them af-
ter the war. She could not have known that over 90 percent
of their families would perish in Treblinka. She could also not
have guessed that she, a leftwing radical and lifelong socialist,
would be persecuted by the post-war Communists and that her
own children would be discriminated against for admission to
university or for jobs because of their mother’s wartime actions.
In this review, I will explain why Irena’s story came out only
36 u www.wherewhatwhen.com u
Irena’s Children by Tilar J. Mazzeo: a Book Review
SthominegS by Rabbi Elchonon Oberstein
need
ttaoilboer Like most of you, I have read about righteous gentiles who
made. risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. In-
variably, their stories are told from the Jewish vantage
ionnSeuorfantcheemiS. point. I want to take you on a journey back into that hor-
rible time to see the things through the eyes of decent Pol-
Don’t settle for a one-size-fits-all policy. ish gentiles. You will glimpse a story very different from
At Wealcatch Insurance every policy the ones we are more familiar with.
is custom made. Irena Sendler was a Polish woman who saved children from
the Warsaw ghetto. Moreover, unlike the righteous gentiles we
AUTO • HOME • COMMERCIAL • LIFE are used to hearing about, who acted alone, she was part of a
large network of gentiles who risked their lives and saved more
410.653.3053 • info@wealcatchmd.com Jews than Schindler or other, more famous, people. Together
with her friends and coworkers, Irena smuggled infants out of
the Warsaw ghetto in suitcases and wooden boxes, past German
guards and Jewish police traitors. She brought out toddlers and
schoolchildren through the city’s foul and dangerous sewers.
She worked with Jewish teenagers, many of them girls of 14 or
15, who fought bravely and died in the ghetto uprising.
Before she was caught and tortured by the Gestapo (saved
from certain death by a massive bribe given by the Polish under-
ground to a Nazi), Irena saved over 2,500 children, all of whose
true identities she recorded so that she could return them af-
ter the war. She could not have known that over 90 percent
of their families would perish in Treblinka. She could also not
have guessed that she, a leftwing radical and lifelong socialist,
would be persecuted by the post-war Communists and that her
own children would be discriminated against for admission to
university or for jobs because of their mother’s wartime actions.
In this review, I will explain why Irena’s story came out only
36 u www.wherewhatwhen.com u
