“Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalm 82:4 ESV
The long night of conversations over the pleasantries of relatively freshly baked desserts (even if there was hardly any sugar in them) was a sweet rarity that warmed Irena’s body and spirit. It was special times like this that made her temporarily forget, even if it was partial, the fear and the horror that surrounded her and gripped the once beautiful city of Warsaw.
It was hard for anyone with a conscience to indulge in bread that wasn’t old and stale while so many in the Ghetto, just a few streets away, were currently starving. But there was no guilt felt this night, there was no shame nor regrets. The small company of loved ones with talk of better times was a true gift to Irena. It was far better than any wrapped present could’ve been.
With heavy eyes, it was in this mood that Irena finally laid her head down to sleep. And quickly, she was dreaming of her youth with familiar and unfamiliar faces in both recent and distant memories. As past experiences seamlessly converged into new dreams, more and more children began to appear, filling the scenes of Irena’s resting mind. And before long there were multitudes of young ones. There were so many that Irena nearly felt lost. She could no longer discern if she were in a dream or just a spectator of it. And although, at the time, Irena herself was childless, the pleasant emotions of motherhood, like pride, comfort, and joy, were strongly evoked by the throngs of happy children who all seemed to be gathering around an elderly woman, a woman so old, short, and white, that it was difficult for Irena to discern who she was. The ancient woman hardly moved, but when she did, Irena noticed that it was slow, awkward, and looked even painful. And it was in the midst of this euphoric perception of feeling like a mother that there came an unwelcome and disturbing pain. Irena could feel it in her heart and perceived the old woman did as well. It was like the prophet Simeon when he spoke to the proud mother of Jesus, saying that her son’s rise and fall would pierce her own soul like a sword.
Irena’s restful dream ended with a nightmare that was just beginning.
Suddenly the harsh pounding on Irena’s front door jolted her awake! She knew exactly what was happening and who it was, but it didn’t ease the pounding in her chest. Irena had rehearsed what she would do in this circumstance over and over and like clockwork, she reached down from her bed and grabbed the glass jar.
What was in the jar was more valuable than her own life and for that matter, more important than the three lives of the other women in her house now: her mother, Janina, her mother’s sister, and her good friend, Janka. They had spent the night in celebration of Irena’s naming day. But the only thing that mattered now was making sure the Gestapo would not find the jar! And they were about to break the door down.
With jar in hand, Irena ran to the kitchen window which sat above the unkempt bushes twenty feet below in her small backyard. As she lifted the window sash to toss the container down, she saw two guards standing below looking up at her.
“Dear God!” was all Irena could think.
This had been her plan. This had always been her plan: to discard the glass jar into the shrubs where it would be kept safe! Irena determined the SS guards were there for her alone so as she heard a pry bar began to splinter the thin front door, Irena threw the precious container to Janka.
“These are our children. They must not be found!”
The door violently burst open just as Janka awkwardly stuffed the jar down her shirt. Nine SS guards swarmed into the small dwelling, furiously barking orders. Their hostile presence filled the entire complex, along with the four women inside the small apartment, with absolute terror. And that was the precise point! It was three o’clock in the morning and every neighbors’ eyes were on Irena’s flat. After three long hours of turning her small home upside down, searching for anything and everything to incriminate Irena, the Nazi’s finally stopped. It was now six o’clock in the morning, and despite all their efforts to find something, the guards missed a bag full of cash and identity documents that had been in fairly plain view but was now covered by Irena’s broken bed frame. Irena thought it was a miracle. If there were any silver linings in this nightmare, it was that the Gestapo didn’t find anything. They only wanted Irena, and they never knew about the glass jar still hidden in Janka’s blouse.
As the sun just began to give its light, Irena was ushered into the prison car waiting on the street outside. It was crowded with SS guards, most of whom had already dosed off. Irena had to sit on the lap of one of the agents. It wasn’t long after the sedan had left her apartment that Irena had time to gather her thoughts about where she was being taken the infamous Pawiak Prison. It was built in the early 1800s by the Russian Empire and served to retain any criminal or political prisoners in Warsaw. When Poland gained independence in 1918, the prison held its own country’s criminals. But now it belonged to the Gestapo. It is thought that under the brief but brutal stint of Nazi rule, from the one hundred thousand prisoners that were kept there, nearly 40,000 had been murdered on its premises. With the remaining 60,000 being transported to death camps, the chance of surviving an incarceration was basically non-existent. Irena knew this, and as much as anyone could, she began to ready herself for starvation, interrogations, and beatings that would make even the strongest wish for death.
And Irena couldn’t have prepared herself any faster. The first day of her time as a prisoner was just like anyone else’s. It began with a brief and relatively mild time of questioning where she denied knowing anything about Zegota, the underground Polish resistance that supplied Irena’s efforts in saving the children, followed by a purposefully excruciating beating. Battons, fists, whips, and soldering irons were just some of the tools used to make the prisoners more apt to confess in the future. Irena would never really tell about her time in prison, but her legs were traumatized. If she survived the prison, the lashings and beatings she took to her lower extremities would undoubtedly stay with her for the rest of her life.
As Irena limped back to her cell down the stone walkways at Pawiak, she happened to see a few of her old work partners and even friends she thought had died or who had simply disappeared. This small comfort heartened her to know that even in this prison she was not completely alone.
As the long day came to an end and night fell, Irena, along with the other women in the small cell, leaned against one another in hope to find just a few hours of sleep. Although exhausted, a small and delusional thought harassed her that this had all just been a bad dream. But when the 8:30 morning execution calls were made the next morning, any illusion that this was not reality quickly vanished. At 9:00 there was “breakfast.” This consisted of a thin slice of moldy bread with some coffee. Soon after, Irena’s named was randomly called. She was to go see the prison dentist. Irena didn’t know what to make of this since she had no need for a dentist. But as she was escorted to the small infirmary, she wondered if this trip to the dentist was something in her favor. She turned out to be correct.
After being seated, Irena was given a small slip of paper by the dentist, a doctor Irena knew before the war and with whom she was politically sympathetic with. She unrolled the piece of paper and quickly read the clear and brief message: “We are doing everything we can to get you out of that hell.” A flood of hope surged through Irena’s beaten body. She was undoubtedly strong and determined to never confess, but the secret message greatly encouraged her. Even if the odds were against Irena surviving the prison, the smallest amount of optimism gave her even more reason to stay resolute. And she would need it.
For the next few months Irena was subjected to more questioning and more beatings in the hope that she would eventually break and confess something or anything about her dealings with the Polish underground resistance. But her answers were consistent. She was a simple social worker who knew nothing of Zegota. When Irena and her cellmates were not being interrogated or walked around the prison, they would scrub and clean the uniforms and underwear of their prison guards in the laundry room. One day a psychotic guard who found their work unsatisfactory lined the cleaning crew up against the wall and shot every other woman in the head with his pistol. The two women on each side of Irena crumbled to the ground.
Between the brutal cross examinations and the horror that accompanied their forced labor, this schedule had now become fairly routine and had now lasted for 120 grueling days. While interrogations and beatings were not everyday, giving the women a slight reprieve, it was only short lived, as they were sure to return. The only shred of hope the women shared was not hearing their name announced for the morning executions. Until one day, four months after Irena was taken prisoner, on January 20, Irena’s name was finally called. She was one of about fifteen women that day to be executed. Any hope Irena might have had in being rescued was now gone. But at least the nightmare was soon to end.
And as each minute passed, Irena, along with the others, had really nothing to do but accept their fate. Soon after hearing their names, the group of women were loaded onto a truck that was headed for Szucha. This was a nearby Gestapo holding facility, where not only interrogators waited for prisoners, but firing squads as well. After being escorted into a large lobby, the women lined up one-by-one. Once someone’s name was called, a guard would walk the prisoner to the door on the left which led to an outside courtyard. A gun shot would then echo across the stone walls of the cold building. The crack of the rifle rattled the ears and completely unnerved the hearts of those awaiting their turn. Some of the women began to cry and another passed out. And then, Irena was called.
As she walked to the door on the left, the guard unexpectedly motioned for her to go toward the door on the right. Confused and dreading she was going to be further interrogated, Irena longed for a cyanid capsule. Yet she did as she was commanded. Once being thrown to the ground in the side room, the guard who escorted her abruptly left as a new guard entered. This German then forcefully picked Irena up by the arm and led her through another door, out into the open winter air. Irena was nearly blinded by the sunlight as she had not seen it in four months. This blinding light, coupled with confusion, fear, and pain, only made the guard forcefully drag Irena behind him. After walking through a few side streets, the guard suddenly stopped. He then pulled Irena in front of him and then with both arms, he pushed her away, only to utter the most unimaginable words Irena could have thought: “You’re free.”
“You’re free.” He said, “Leave!”
Irena didn’t understand - she just stood there bewildered.
“Don’t you get it? Free yourself!” he ordered.
Irena was still disoriented and in disbelief. She didn’t know if she were in a dream, or if it were true. And even if it were a reality, she didn’t know what to do. As the guard began to walk away from where they came, Irena could only think to demand her identity papers.
“Give me my papers!” she cried.
Aghast that a freed prisoner would make such a request, the Gestapo guard immediately turned back, stepped up to Irena and blasted her face with his gloved fist. Making sure she got the point, the German then turned around and quickly hustled back to work.
And like that, with a mouth full of blood, hardly able to walk, standing near a parliament building in the cold winter of a Warsaw morning, Irena was free.
She quickly managed to find her friends and coworkers and even ended up staying with her mother for a few nights despite the huge risk of being caught again. After being shuffled from safe house to safe house, dying her hair red, and going under the new name of Klara Dąbrowska, Irena soon resumed her position as the Children’s Director of Zegota. With the collaboration of Irena’s close friends, Zegota had provided the bribe money to free her. No one knows the exact amount that was paid to buy off the Nazis, but some guesses are near 35,000 zlotych, (about one hundred thousand dollars today.)
Because of the bribe money, Irena was saved. And because Irena never confessed during her time in prison, the glass jar containing the precious lists of those children rescued from the Ghetto was never found either.
And as the children she saved grew up, Irena grew old. Yet as time past, Warsaw was still politically complicated by the communist rule of the Soviet Union. It wasn’t until late in the 1980s that Poland actually regained national independence and sovereignty. And it was only then that Irena was able to travel to Jerusalem to meet many of the children she helped save nearly half a century before. She was almost 80 years old by then. But Irena had more years left to live. In this late stage in her life, her story of courage and bravery started to become more recognized. For, until then, it had nearly been forgotten by the world. She received many prestigious awards by Poland, the U.S., and Israel. By this time, Irena was now well beyond aged. She still limped and moved slowly, and her hair had long since turned chalk white, but her smile and her eyes were as youthful as ever! Irena died peacefully on May 12, 2008, in her home in Warsaw. She was 98 years old.
Even after her death Irena received many more honorary awards, too many to list here. But out of all those awards, honors, and accolades, none held any significance compared to when she was visited, thanked, and adored by those countless children she once rescued from despair.
Micah Coate, President and Host of Salvation and Stuff
To enjoy this in a Podcast go here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/salvation-and-stuff/id1492371560?i=1000499905256
Works Cited: With some artistic freedom this was largely taken from Jack Mayer’s, Life in a Jar, The Irena Sendler Project, Long Tail Press Middlebury, Vermont, 2011.
Irena Painting by Nancy Mergybrower, https://fineartamerica.com/featured/life-in-a-jar-irena-sendler-nancy-mergybrower.html.
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