How one person saved over 2,000 children from the Nazis - Iseult Gillespie

1,854,269 views ・ 2021-06-28

TED-Ed


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In Warsaw, late October 1943,
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Irena Sendler and Janina Grabowska were enjoying a rare moment of peace
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in their war-torn city.
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But their laughter froze when they heard the Gestapo pounding on Sendler’s door.
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Sendler rushed to the window to dispose of incriminating evidence—
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only to see more police patrolling below.
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Knowing she was minutes from arrest,
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she tossed Janina her most dangerous possession:
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a glass jar containing the names of over 2,000 Jewish children
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she’d smuggled to safety.
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This arrest wasn’t the first consequence Sendler had faced
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in her lifelong crusade against anti-Semitism.
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Born to Catholic parents in 1910, she grew up in a predominantly Jewish town
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where her father treated poor Jewish patients other doctors refused to help.
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Irena was furious at the constant discrimination against her Jewish friends.
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As a graduate student in social welfare at the University of Warsaw,
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Sendler publicly denounced the segregation of classrooms
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and defaced her non-Jewish identity card—
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earning her a suspension and a reputation for troublemaking.
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Buoyed by her socialist ideals and inspired by her fellow social workers,
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Sendler assisted vulnerable Jewish families across Warsaw,
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pushing back on the waves of anti-Semitism surging through Europe.
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But in September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland,
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bringing laws that further eroded Jewish rights.
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In 1940, Hitler announced that hundreds of thousands of Jews in Warsaw
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were to be forced into just over one square mile of land.
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Bordered by high walls and subject to constant surveillance,
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families living in the Warsaw Ghetto quickly became starving and sick.
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Appalled, Sendler and her colleagues secured passes to the ghetto
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on the pretense of checking for typhus outbreaks.
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At first, her group worked to smuggle in resources
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with the help of sympathetic Polish officials and the medical underground.
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But as desperate parents began sending their children through sewers
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and over walls,
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it became clear that to help these people survive,
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Sendler needed to help them escape.
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Sendler and her associates developed a coordinated campaign of rescue missions.
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Children were bundled into dirty laundry, packed into boxes on cargo trains,
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and carried beneath the Gestapo’s noses in coffins, toolboxes, and briefcases.
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Bigger children escaped through the courthouse and church,
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which straddled the ghetto’s boundaries.
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Sendler helped ferry these children to safe houses,
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before forging them new documents and sending them to orphanages,
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convents, and foster families across Poland.
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To retain their Jewish identities and keep track of every child,
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Sendler kept painstaking records on thin cigarette paper
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and stored them in glass jars.
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This work was punishable by death.
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But for Sendler, such consequences paled in comparison
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to the pain of convincing parents to part with their children—
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often with no promise of a reunion.
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In 1942, the Nazis began transporting Jews from the ghetto
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into concentration camps.
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Sendler worked with new urgency,
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joining forces with the Nazi resistance group called Zegota.
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Zegota helped Sendler expand her operation by stashing money for her
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in post boxes across Warsaw.
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But this system would also be Sendler’s downfall.
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When the Gestapo threatened a laundry owner whose business
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contained a Zegota post box,
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she gave them Sendler’s name.
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At 3am on October 20th, the Gestapo burst into Sendler’s apartment,
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arresting her for aiding Jews throughout the country.
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The police had captured Sendler, but her records remained safe.
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Janina protected the children’s names with her life,
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all without knowing whether her friend would ever return.
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Despite enduring months of physical and psychological torture,
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Sendler betrayed no information.
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Defiant to the end, she was sentenced to execution on January 20th, 1944.
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But as she walked to her death, a German officer diverted her course.
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Zegota had paid the Gestapo the modern equivalent of over $100,000
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for Sendler’s release.
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That night as she listened to bullhorns proclaiming her death,
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Sendler’s work began anew.
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Remaining in hiding, she continued to oversee Zegota’s rescue missions
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until Germany’s defeat in 1945.
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After the war, Sendler reconnected with the children she’d helped escape,
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remaining in contact with many for the rest of her life.
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And while the new Polish government sought to suppress her story,
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the children she rescued ensured she was recognized for her work.
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Yet despite all the lives she saved,
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Sendler remained hesitant to accept praise for her actions, remarking,
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“I continue to have qualms of conscience that I did so little.”
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