A Heroine Of the Holocaust: Irena Sendler

During the horrific days of the Holocaust, a woman by the name of Irena Sendler did something amazing. While millions of Jews--including children--were routinely taken away to death camps, Ms. Sendler risked her own life to hide them. As early as 1939, she began aiding Jews while the German Army invaded her native Poland. Soon she was put in charge of specifically rescuing Jewish Children by a resistance movement called The Zegota.

Irena Sendler rescued 2,500 Jewish children by cleverly smuggling them out in various ways. Some were secretly put into gunny sacks and transported as baggage. She went into the heart of suffering--the Warsaw Ghetto--and persuaded parents to give up their children in the hopes that they might escape the coming darkness of the Death Camps. Cool, determined and strong under pressure, she was able to slide past the watchful eyes of the Nazis with her precious cargo safe and intact.

Ms. Sendler was a German Roman Catholic, raised to value human life and all religions and races. Her commitment would be horribly tested as she would be captured and tortured by the Nazis. She would never reveal the whereabouts of the children, even under the ghastly devices of the enemy. She died in May of 2008, the scars of interrogation on her body.

Approximately five years ago she was nominated for a Nobel Prize, but did not win. Al Gore won, for his "slide show" presentation of Global Warming.