Look at this lady - Let us never forget!
The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving.
The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving.
Irena Sendler
There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena.
During WWII, Irena got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.
She had an 'ulterior motive'.
She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German).
Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried, and in the back of her truck she carried a burlap sack (for larger kids).
She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.
She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept those names in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family.
(A condition of receiving a foster child was that the child was to be re-united with their family after the war was over. Many of the families (about 400 or so) went missing. The hope is that the families who received the poor babies raised the kids to be Catholic, and perhaps the kids grew up not knowing about their Jewish roots. The alternative is too harsh to think of...that there simply was NO family still alive to claim the child. )
In 2007, Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was not selected. Al Gore won --- for a slide show on Global Warming.
63 years ago...
In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler
2 comments:
What a truly remarkable woman. I can't imagine what it must have been like in those dark days, or the torment this tiny woman prevented. I would like to hope that there is at least one person out in the world that she saved who went on to do more things that changed the world for the better...
In remembering her here I can think would've meant as much to her as the Nobel Prize~~she obviously wasn't in this for the glory! By keeping her name and her deeds alive she is immortalized. Thank you for the posting!
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
It doesnt take a big guy to be a hero, or a rich one. All it really takes is a realization that there is a difference between "right and wrong", and be prepared to do the right thing even if there is some risk.
To fail to do the right thing even when there is zero risk is just deplorable.
It risks nothing to stop and buy an extra hot dog at the kiosk outside the train station, and share your meal with a homeless guy. It costs even less to drop into a nursing home or a soup kitchen and ask if you can do something to help.
But this woman...saw evil. And did something about it. Not as much as she would have liked, nor enough to stop it cold in its tracks. But something pretty significant IMHO.
When some bozo starts sounding off about "foreigners taking our jobs" or as Pierre Polievre (my local MP no less!) was caught by me soliciting signatures on a petition to limit the lawful appeals by "foreign crimminals", this is just wrong....wrong enough to bear the stench of evil. Sorry Pierre, if a judge allows an appeal, there may well be a valid reason for it, and they are entitled to the benefit of the law.
I know it is trite to say "for evil to flourish, all it takes is for good men to do nothing", but it is still perfectly valid.
Now go and give blood, or help an old lady across the street, or smuggle a baby. Its all gold in heaven.
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