Doctor Janusz Korczak and nurse Irena Sendler witnessed Nazi brutality against Jews in Warsaw, although they probably never met, and they gave their lives to the neediest at that fateful time.
by Ricardo Angoso
The stories of doctor Janusz Korczak and nurse Irena Sendler, which took place in parallel in Nazi-occupied Warsaw (1939-1945), have many points in common, especially regarding their role in that sinister period characterized by the persecution of millions of Jews in their country. Both refused to collaborate with the genocidaires and gave their best in times when denunciation, betrayal and collaboration with the occupiers were the order of the day.
Although it is a recurring theme, that of the collaboration of thousands of Poles and some Jews with the Nazi occupiers in the implementation of the final solution, it is also true that some hundreds of Poles did not allow themselves to be seduced by the perfidious Nazi game of, in exchange for a certain tranquility and some privileges, informing and even denouncing the Jews who would almost certainly end up being deported and later murdered without mercy. Worthy of special mention are the hundreds of Jews who enlisted in the police formed by the occupiers to watch over their own people in the ghettos, and even, as happened in Warsaw, Krakow and other cities, collaborating eagerly in the deportations to the extermination camps on the way to certain death.
This is not the case with the two heroic figures in question, Janusz and Irena, who, with their example for posterity and, I would dare say, for eternity, constitute the dignified Poland that did not kneel or surrender to Nazism, but was part of a resistance against an atrocious and cruel enemy that showed no hint of mercy.
A SILENT AND ALMOST UNPUBLISHED HERO
Before World War II, in the 1879s and 1935s, Janusz Korczak (born XNUMX) was a prominent figure in Polish society, famous for his writings and radio broadcasts on education and child development. In XNUMX, following the death of Jozef Pilsudski, his broadcasts were discontinued due to rising anti-Semitism in Poland, but his literary reputation endured nonetheless. By this time, despite being Jewish being an obstacle, he was already a prominent figure in Poland and a fully integrated public figure in Warsaw society.
His works and writings before the German attack on Poland in 1939 were therefore well known, both in theory and in practice, and he was a great innovator in the field of education. Janusz Korczak put his ideas regarding children's rights into practice: the orphanage was organised like a republic and had revolutionary overtones.
Like so many other men and women of her time, 1 September 1939 was a turning point in her life. No one expected that the German occupation would mean the physical and spiritual destruction of Poland, but also of the more than three million Jews living in Polish territory. The war cut short her entire professional and family life.
THE CREATION OF THE WARSAW GHETTO
When World War II broke out in 1939 with the German occupation of Poland, Janusz Korczak refused to abide by Nazi regulations and was imprisoned for a time. Later, in a further twist, the Jews of Warsaw were forced to move into a ghetto. From then on, Janusz Korczak concentrated his efforts, as always, on the children of his orphanage. His Polish friends were willing to hide him in the “Aryan” sector of the city, but he refused and went with all his children to the disgraceful and unhealthy Warsaw ghetto.
Conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto were appalling for everyone, but especially for the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and children. Disease was rampant in the ghetto and hundreds of people died every day from disease, hunger and the brutality of the Nazi forces and their fanatical collaborators against the Jews. Korczak, in these appalling conditions, was determined to use all his strength to help the children in his care, which was not easy and with little help from those who could no longer help him.
The situation, however, was determined to worsen, and soon stubborn events would show that even in the most adverse conditions, things can get worse, as they did. In August 1942, during the “Great Deportation” of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Nazis turned their attention to the orphanages and liquidated them one by one. Despite being offered relative safety, Korczak decided to accompany the orphans in his care, taking them to Umschlagplatz (the deportation point in Warsaw that is recreated in the film). El pianista from Polasnky), from where they were deported on 5 or 6 August 1942. There is no way of knowing for sure why she decided to do this, but her writings consistently place the needs of the children above all else.
That was Korczak's last battle against barbarism. “The fact that Korczak voluntarily gave up his life for his convictions gives an idea of his greatness. But that is nothing compared to 'the power of his message',” said the writer Bruno Bettelheim of the character. As Janusz Korczak himself said, “it is unacceptable to leave the world as we found it.” Korczak died in Treblinka almost certainly on 6 or 7 August 1942, accompanied by his two hundred children.
A POLISH NURSE WHO RISKED EVERYTHING FOR THE JEWS
Irena Sendler was born in Poland in 1910, in a village called Otwock, 23 kilometres south-east of Warsaw. Her life was going on quietly, like that of all Poles, until Germany invaded Poland. In those fateful days of October 1939, which would change her life, Irena was working as a senior administrator in the Warsaw Department of Social Welfare, which operated the city's soup kitchens.
Once the country was conquered, most Poles were stunned and terrified by the brutality of the German conquerors. Soon, Jews would also experience unimaginable hardships, suffering and torture until finally the “final solution” was carried out and millions were exterminated in the death camps.
Irena, as the previous world was collapsing around her, soon began to work and give her all for those who were suffering the most. Irena Sendler used her position to help Jews, but this became practically impossible when the ghetto where all the Jews were held was sealed off in November 1940. Nearly 400.000 people had been crammed into the narrow area that had been allotted to the ghetto and their situation deteriorated rapidly. In the overcrowded ghetto, the poor hygiene conditions and lack of food resulted in the outbreak of epidemics and a high death rate. Irena Sendler, at great personal risk, devised methods of entering the ghetto and providing aid to the dying Jews. She managed to obtain a permit from the municipality that granted her entry into the ghetto to inspect the sanitary conditions.
Risking her life and being hunted by the Germans, who were already after her activities and punished anyone who helped Jews with death, Irena, who moved around the ghetto quite freely, deceiving the Nazis as best she could, soon found a way to start taking children out of the ghetto and giving them to other Polish families. She soon made contact with families and offered to take their children out of the ghetto, as she did many times at the risk of her life.
Over the course of a year and a half, until the evacuation of the ghetto in the summer of 1942, he managed to rescue more than 2.500 children by various means: he began by taking them out in ambulances as victims of typhus, but soon he resorted to all kinds of subterfuges to hide them: sacks, garbage baskets, tool boxes, cargoes of merchandise, bags of potatoes, coffins… in his hands, anything became a means of escape. Other methods included a church with two entrances, one on the ghetto side and the other on the Aryan side of Warsaw. The children entered the church on one side as Jews and left on the other as Christians.
Ultimately, and predictably, her activities did not go unnoticed by the Germans and Irena was already in the crosshairs of the Nazi criminal machinery. The Germans became aware of her activities and on 20 October 1943 Irena was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo. Although she was the only one who knew the names and addresses of the families sheltering the Jewish children, she endured torture and refused to betray her associates or any of the hidden children. Her feet and legs were broken. Irena spent three months in the terrible prison of Pawiak where she was sentenced to death.
However, it is not clear how she managed to save her life. Some sources say that the Polish resistance bribed some Germans to free her, while others say that a German soldier took pity on her and saved her life. Whatever the case, Irena lived to tell of her experiences, including the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which she witnessed. Regarding the children she saved, Irena had only one record of their true identities, which she kept in jars of compote buried under an apple tree in a neighbour's yard.
After these heroic deeds, Irena Sendler's life and her great deed fell into oblivion. The new Polish communist authorities were not interested in talking about the Holocaust, which they considered a “German issue,” and traditional Polish anti-Semitism permeated the new regime. For the long communist dictatorship (1945-1989), the Jewish question was taboo and bad relations with Israel made the Jewish people invisible in the new Poland, something that was almost true if we take into account that of the 3.300.000 million Only about 300.000 of Polish Jews survived the war and the Holocaust.
Even during the communist period, Irena had problems with the secret police, being relegated by the authorities to secondary positions, and without recognition for her work during the Second World War.
Despite the deliberate neglect of her image, in 1965, the Yad Vashem institution in Jerusalem awarded her the title of Righteous Among the Nations and made her an honorary citizen of Israel. And in November 2003, the President of the Republic of Poland (now democratic), Aleksander Kwasniewski, awarded her Poland's highest civil honour when he made her a Dame of the Order of the White Eagle.
Irena Sendler died in Warsaw on May 12, 2008. She was 98 years old.