As a kid, World War II fascinated me, but that was mostly because of the aircraft. I was not drawn as strongly to tanks, ships, or even the history, although I had a grandfather who fought with the U.S. Army in the Pacific and two grandparents who lived through the war as children in Germany. It was the airplanes that held my attention as a kid, and I drew, painted, and read about them a lot. I don’t remember exactly when, but sometime during my elementary school years, an exhibit on Anne Frank came to Salt Lake City, and I had the chance to see it. That opened a whole new world to me: one of the resistance and the underground, a world where people had to risk their lives simply to do what was right. That seemed very interesting to me then and has continued to be very interesting throughout my life.
It seems there are many stories to be told about those who did what they could to fight against the Nazis from inside, and Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto by Tilar J. Mazzeo (ISBN: 978-1-4767-7851-8) tells quite an incredible story. The book chronicles the World War II experience of Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic who repeatedly risked her life to save Jewish children from the Holocaust. Over the course of the war, Irena Sendler was able to aid in the escape of at least 2,500 (while she and others did their best to keep records, most of those records were ultimately lost and their reconstruction was admittedly incomplete) Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto and into ethnically Polish homes and orphanges, where they were usually able to escape detection. It was rarely a simple process, and included the stuff of thrillers and spy movies: escapes through the sewers, disguise, assumed identities, forged documents, illegal networks, and contacts in high places. Irena didn’t do the work on her own (something she was always very quick to point out), and around her there was a large network of people that included teenagers that were willing to serve as sewer guides, nurses and doctors who helped with false papers, social welfare workers (Irena’s profession) who used their contacts and access to help, friends, and scores of people along the way such as neighbors and business owners that turned their heads the other way when they needed to, even if they couldn’t do more. At one point, Irena was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, and then she was the one being rescued. The story is full of adventure and danger. The author also spent a fair amount of time discussing Irena’s love life an seemed to make a lot of effort to fill the reader in on those who played the largest roles in Irena’s network of anti-Nazi collaborators.
The book was definitely an interesting one and told, as the tag line on the cover says, a “story of courage.” What was particularly impressive (as is often the case with such stories), was that it didn’t seem that Irena had to summon much courage to do what she did, and neither did those around her. They simply acted based on what they knew was the right thing to do. Considering the millions of Jews killed during the Holocaust, the nagging question is always whether or not it was worth it. Irena herself was scarred for life thanks to Gestapo torture. She was more haunted, though, by the constant second-guessing that she did herself about whether or not she could’ve done more. I am reminded of the story of a kid tossing drying star fish back into the ocean who is asked by someone else, “Why do you do this? There are thousands of starfish on the beach; you can’t possibly help them all.” The response comes after throwing one more back in the water, “I made a differenc to that one.” The book spent what I thought was too much time discussing Irena’s somewhat conflicted love life, including her love for one of the Jews she worked with in the underground (she divorced her first husband to marry her Jewish lover, Adam, then, divorced him, and after his death, remarried her first husband, so it was complicated, as they say), and I thought it often strayed from the story to provide too many details about those around Irena. They were also couragous and worthy of having their stories told, but I would’ve appreciated a tighter focus, especially as the author seemed to enjoy noting at every possible chance that most of Irena’s circle (herself included), were socialists and came from somewhere on the left side of the political spectrum (mentioning this once would’ve been sufficient). Given those criticisms, though, the story really was one of courageously making a difference and is a story well worth reading. As a kid, it was easy to imagine myself in the resistance. As an adult, I better understand those who struggled to make the right choices. Stories like this are great because they inspire us to more easily make those correct choices and help others, even if we only make “a differenc to that one.”
It seems there are many stories to be told about those who did what they could to fight against the Nazis from inside, and Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto by Tilar J. Mazzeo (ISBN: 978-1-4767-7851-8) tells quite an incredible story. The book chronicles the World War II experience of Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic who repeatedly risked her life to save Jewish children from the Holocaust. Over the course of the war, Irena Sendler was able to aid in the escape of at least 2,500 (while she and others did their best to keep records, most of those records were ultimately lost and their reconstruction was admittedly incomplete) Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto and into ethnically Polish homes and orphanges, where they were usually able to escape detection. It was rarely a simple process, and included the stuff of thrillers and spy movies: escapes through the sewers, disguise, assumed identities, forged documents, illegal networks, and contacts in high places. Irena didn’t do the work on her own (something she was always very quick to point out), and around her there was a large network of people that included teenagers that were willing to serve as sewer guides, nurses and doctors who helped with false papers, social welfare workers (Irena’s profession) who used their contacts and access to help, friends, and scores of people along the way such as neighbors and business owners that turned their heads the other way when they needed to, even if they couldn’t do more. At one point, Irena was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, and then she was the one being rescued. The story is full of adventure and danger. The author also spent a fair amount of time discussing Irena’s love life an seemed to make a lot of effort to fill the reader in on those who played the largest roles in Irena’s network of anti-Nazi collaborators.The book was definitely an interesting one and told, as the tag line on the cover says, a “story of courage.” What was particularly impressive (as is often the case with such stories), was that it didn’t seem that Irena had to summon much courage to do what she did, and neither did those around her. They simply acted based on what they knew was the right thing to do. Considering the millions of Jews killed during the Holocaust, the nagging question is always whether or not it was worth it. Irena herself was scarred for life thanks to Gestapo torture. She was more haunted, though, by the constant second-guessing that she did herself about whether or not she could’ve done more. I am reminded of the story of a kid tossing drying star fish back into the ocean who is asked by someone else, “Why do you do this? There are thousands of starfish on the beach; you can’t possibly help them all.” The response comes after throwing one more back in the water, “I made a differenc to that one.” The book spent what I thought was too much time discussing Irena’s somewhat conflicted love life, including her love for one of the Jews she worked with in the underground (she divorced her first husband to marry her Jewish lover, Adam, then, divorced him, and after his death, remarried her first husband, so it was complicated, as they say), and I thought it often strayed from the story to provide too many details about those around Irena. They were also couragous and worthy of having their stories told, but I would’ve appreciated a tighter focus, especially as the author seemed to enjoy noting at every possible chance that most of Irena’s circle (herself included), were socialists and came from somewhere on the left side of the political spectrum (mentioning this once would’ve been sufficient). Given those criticisms, though, the story really was one of courageously making a difference and is a story well worth reading. As a kid, it was easy to imagine myself in the resistance. As an adult, I better understand those who struggled to make the right choices. Stories like this are great because they inspire us to more easily make those correct choices and help others, even if we only make “a differenc to that one.”
 | This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 License and is copyrighted © MMXIV John Pruess. |
