Born on February 15, 1910, in Warsaw, Poland. She was raised in Otwock, where her father, Stanisław Henryk Krzyżanowski, was the director of sanatorium. Irena began her studies at the University of Warsaw, in 1928; she studied law and Polish. As a student, she joined the Union of Polish Democratic Youth. In 1931, Irena married, Mieczysław Sendler, an assistant in the Department of Classical Philology, at the University of Warsaw. Together Irena and Sendler had 3 children, two sons, Adam and Andrzej and a daughter, Janina ; one of their sons died soon after birth and the other son suffered from heart problems and died in the 1990's. Unfortunately, she never completed her studies, shortly before the outbreak of WW2, Irena prepared her thesis on Polish writer, Eliza Orzeszkowa, which she planned to defend in the autumn of 1939. Irena's husband who was in the Polish army, was captured by German forces in September 1939 and spent 5 years in the POW camp, Woldenberg.
She began her professional career in 1932, in the legal department for the Mother & Child Assistance Division at the Free Polish University. At the time, Irena also worked as a social worker, psychotherapist and sex educator. In 1935, when the division was closed down, she obtained a position in the Warsaw Department of Social Welfare & Public Health, where she remained until the outbreak of the war. Soon after the Germans invaded Poland, Irena together with colleagues from her department, began organizing aid for Jews.
After November 16, 1940, when the Germans closed off the Warsaw Ghetto, Irena was able to enter with a pass issued to her by the director of Municipal Sanitation Department. She acted on her own, paying visits to friends, providing them with food, medicine and helping sell belongings. She eventually began organizing children's activities and concerts, in the ghetto. And even after the German liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in July 1942, Irena's pass remained valid, allowing her access to the extremely vulnerable Jews.
In about January 1943, Irena got in contact with, Julian Grobelny, Chairman of the "Żegota" Council to Aid Jews. The Polish-Jewish underground organization than joined forces with staff from the Social Welfare Department. Irena took on the pseudonym "Jolanta", she sent money to those in need and sought places for them to seek refuge. In August 1943, she joined the children's unit of Żegota and took it over in September that year. But she was arrested by the Gestapo, four days later.
Irena was sent to Pawiak Prison but was released thanks to the payment of a bribe by the Żegota Council, an effort initiated by her friend, Maria Palester from the Social Welfare Department. Irena became "Klara Dąbrowska" and changed her address. When the Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1, 1944, Irena was at Maria's home. Until September of that year, Irena worked as a nurse at the medical aid unit. Under the surname Zgrzembeski, she hid with her future husband, Adam Celniker, who she'd previously helped in the Warsaw ghetto. Irena and a group of prisoners who'd escaped from the concentration camp, Pruszków, would later establish a hospital post at Okęcie.
Over the course of the war, Irena is believed to have aided in the rescue of approximately 2500 Jews. For a few years after the end of the war two girls who'd survived the war, Irena Wojdowska and Teresa Tucholska, lived with Irena. She also divorced Sendler, though the pair remarried decades later, in 1961. After the war, Irena continued working at the Social Welfare Department and was heavily involved in other social work and education. Irena was active with the League of Women and she chaired the Widows and Orphans Committee and Health Committee. She also belonged to the National League to Fight Racism, Friends of Children Association and the Society of Secular Schools.
In 1947, Irena joined the Polish Workers Party and became part of the Social-Professional Department of the party's Central Committee. In 1950, she was let go from her position as the leader of the Municipal Social Welfare Department and became the director of the Social Welfare Department of the Union of Invalids, a position she held for about 12 years; until she retired in the 1960's, due to a heart condition. According to her daughter, Janina, after 1956, during a rise in antisemitism in Poland, Irena contemplated going to Israel.
In 1946, Irena received the Gold Cross of Merit, for her help in saving many Jews during the German occupation. The Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem honored Irena with the title "Righteous Amoung Nations", in 1965. In 1983, during a visit to Israel, she planted an olive tree in the Garden of the Righteous, in Jerusalem. She also recieved the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, twice in 1996 & 2001.
Irena Sendler died on May 12, 2008, at the age of 98.
https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/o-sprawiedliwych/irena-sendlerowa/biografia-ireny-sendlerowej
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We Won't Stay Silent
Non-Fiction"We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational and so disciplined they can be free" ...
