Tells story of Irena Sendler who organized the rescue of 2,500 Jewish children during World War II, and the teenagers who started the investigation into Irena's heroism.
This book offers the first English translation of the compelling heroine story of Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic who organized the rescue of more than 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. In the fall of 1999, four young girls from Kansas began research for a high school history project. The students were inspired by a magazine article about Irena Sendler, and after discovering that Sendler was still alive, they exchanged letters with her and eventually traveled to Poland to meet with her. The play the students wrote as a result of their research and multiple interviews spawned worldwide interest in the epic story of one person who managed to save the lives of 2,500 children in Poland under German occupation. This new translation brings the universally appealing story of Irena Sendler to an English-speaking audience for the first time. It contains moving accounts of courage and hope in the face of tremendous danger, cruelty, and terrifying uncertainty. It also portrays the unspeakable emotional distress suffered by the children's parents who chose to give them up, and communicates the decades of immense longing, loneliness, and guilt of the rescuees for having survived while their families did not. - Based on sound scholarship and research while also being easy to read and accessible to a wide readership - Provides a complete, chronological presentation of Sendler's life, from her childhood, education, and wartime humanitarian efforts to her postwar experiences, including her professional and personal life and her visit to Israel - Presents unique information from letters and interviews with the now-elderly children Sendler rescued over 60 years ago, illuminating the dramatic influence she had upon their lives - Contains several sections written in the voice of Irena Sendler, resulting in a lively, conversational first-person narrative that gives a reading experience akin to sitting with Sendler and hearing her story firsthand
Presents the story of a Holocaust rescuer to reveal the formidable risks she took to her own safety to save some 2,500 children from death and deportation in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.
"The Story of Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker who helped rescue nearly 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. includes sidebars on related topics, timeline, glossary, and recommended reading"--
"The story of Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker who helped rescue nearly 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. Includes afterword, author's note, sources, and glossary"--Provided by publisher.
Irena Sendler was born into a Catholic family in Poland in 1910. Throughout the German occupation in World War II, Irena worked tirelessly to help save Poland's Jews from the Nazi horror. Irena saved at least 2,500 Jewish children from certain death during the Holocaust. By the time of her death in 2008, Irena had been honored by the governments of Poland and Israel, Pope John Paul II, and many of those she had rescued.
"He who changes one person, changes the world entire." That is how Irena Sendler viewed life, and that view moved her to the heroic actions she displayed during World War II. As a Polish social worker who saw the disturbing treatment of the Jewish people by Hitler and the Nazis, Irena was determined to do all she could to provide help and safety for Jewish families. It was her bravery and leadership that led to the rescue of so many Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. In Mommy, Who Was Irena Sendler? children will learn how Megan Felt and her high school classmates uncovered the amazing story of Irena Sendler and brought that story to light. As the three high school girls from Kansas began to share the story they called Life in a Jar, many lives were touched and forever changed. Even after the story was first shared with the world, that emotional connection continued to reach across generations. Megan's daughter, too, learned a life-changing lesson from both the courage of Irena Sendler's selfless acts and those of her own mother's determination to share Irena's story. What Mommy, Who Was Irena Sendler? is the thid in a series of children's books about the amazing Unsung Heroes featured at the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes in Fort Scott, Kansas. Through Irena's story and those of other Unsung Heroes, the Center helps students, educators and communities recognize the value of each person in effecting positive change in the world. Cathy Werling, the author, is an award-winning and recently retired elementary educator. Her passion for helping students develop positive character traits and seek out worthy role models led to her part time work at the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes. Through her series of books about these humble heroes, Cathy inspires elementary children to also be those people who make a positive difference in the lives of others.
Based on the gripping true story of an unlikely Polish resistance fighter who helped save thousands of Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, bestselling author James D. Shipman's Irena's War is a heart-pounding novel of courage in action, helmed by an extraordinary and unforgettable protagonist. September 1939: The conquering Nazis swarm through Warsaw as social worker Irena Sendler watches in dread from her apartment window. Already, the city's poor go hungry. Irena wonders how she will continue to deliver food and supplies to those who need it most, including the forbidden Jews. The answer comes unexpectedly. Dragged from her home in the night, Irena is brought before a Gestapo agent, Klaus Rein, who offers her a position running the city's soup kitchens, all to maintain the illusion of order. Though loath to be working under the Germans, Irena learns there are ways to defy her new employer--including forging documents so that Jewish families receive food intended for Aryans. As Irena grows bolder, her interactions with Klaus become more fraught and perilous. Klaus is unable to prove his suspicions against Irena--yet. But once Warsaw's half-million Jews are confined to the ghetto, awaiting slow starvation or the death camps, Irena realizes that providing food is no longer enough. Recruited by the underground Polish resistance organization Zegota, she carries out an audacious scheme to rescue Jewish children. One by one, they are smuggled out in baskets and garbage carts, or led through dank sewers to safety--every success raising Klaus's ire. Determined to quell the uprising, he draws Irena into a cat-and-mouse game that will test her in every way--and where the slightest misstep could mean not just her own death, but the slaughter of those innocents she is so desperate to save.