House Passes Schakowsky Resolution Honoring the Life of Irena Sendler

HOUSE PASSES SCHAKOWSKY RESOLUTION HONORING THE LIFE OF IRENA SENDLER

Washington, D.C.–The U.S. House of Representatives today unanimously approved Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's (D-IL) resolution, H. Con. Res. 361, honoring the life and heroism of Irena Sendler who recently passed away at the age of 98. Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker, repeatedly risked her own life to save 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust. Congresswoman Schakowsky's resolution had 66 bipartisan cosponsors. U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) introduced an identical resolution in the Senate yesterday.

Congresswoman Schakowsky delivered the following remarks on the House floor today before the House unanimously approved the resolution.

"I rise today in support of H.Con.Res. 361, a resolution I introduced commemorating Irena Sendler, a woman whose bravery saved the lives of thousands of children during the Holocaust, and remembering her legacy of courage, selflessness, and hope.

I would like to thank the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congressman Berman, for his leadership in bringing this legislation to the floor today. I would also like to thank Senator Obama for offering similar legislation in the Senate.

Irena Sendler lived her life by the standards of compassion and humanity that she learned from her parents. She once stated, "I was taught that if you see a person drowning, you must jump into the water to save them, whether you can swim or not....

Sendler was a 29-year-old Polish Catholic, employed by the city of Warsaw as a social worker, when the German invasion of Poland ushered in one of the darkest chapters in human history. Jews were rounded up and crowded into the Warsaw ghetto, where poor hygiene and a lack of food and medical supplies led to the outbreak of disease. Sendler managed to pass herself off as an infection-control nurse, enabling her to enter the ghetto and distribute supplies, and she began to smuggle Jews out of the ghetto and into hiding. In 1942, the underground organization Council for the Aid of Jews, known as Zegota, was established following the deportation of 280,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka. Sendler joined the organization, working to assist thousands of Jews who had survived the deportations and were living in hiding.

Working with Zegota, Sendler utilized her contacts with orphanages to rescue Jewish children. Young children were smuggled out in boxes and suitcases; older children were led through secret passages and sewers. Many of the children were sent to Roman Catholic orphanages and convents, while others were hidden in private homes. All were given false identities and non-Jewish names. Sendler buried a jar with the true names of every child in a friend's garden, in hopes of reuniting the children with their families after the war.

A mother herself, Sendler later recalled that the most difficult part of her work was to convince parents to give their children into her care. They would ask her if she could guarantee their survival, and she would respond that she could not, but she could guarantee that they would likely die if they stayed.

Irena Sendler was arrested by the Nazis in October 1943. She managed to hide critical information, including the addresses of the hidden children, before her capture. Although she endured torture and was sentenced to death, she refused to provide the location of the lists of names or the identity of her collaborators. She was spared execution only because other underground activists managed to bribe officials.

After her release, Sendler was forced to go into hiding, but she nevertheless continued to work to rescue Jewish children. Although the exact number of children she saved is unknown, it is widely estimated to be over 2,500. After the war, she unearthed the hidden lists and worked to reunite the children with their families. A large majority of the children had no surviving family members, and many were adopted by Polish families, while others were sent to Israel.

Irena Sendler's remarkable story garnered little attention after the war. She was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel's Yad Vashem on October 19, 1965, but her story was not widely known until 1999, when four high school students in Kansas wrote a play, Life in a Jar, based on her life. The play has since been performed across the United States, Canada, and Europe. In 2003, she was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest civilian decoration, and in 2007 she was honored by the Polish parliament, which unanimously approved a resolution honoring her for organizing the rescue of Jewish children. She was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Irena Sendler passed away in May 2008 at the age of 98. Even though her actions saved countless innocent children from a horrific death, she said that she always regretted being unable to do more.

In speaking about those non-Jews, like Irena Sendler, who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, Elie Weisel stated, "In those times there was darkness everywhere. In heaven and on earth, all the gates of compassion seemed to have been closed. The killer killed and the Jews died and the outside world adopted an attitude either of complicity or of indifference. Only a few had the courage to care. These few men and women were vulnerable, afraid, helpless - what made them different from their fellow citizens?… Why were there so few?"

I introduced this resolution with the hope that Irena Sendler's legacy would help inspire people to fight for human rights and social justice. Her heroic story reminds us that the actions of one person can make a real difference in this world. As the Talmud teaches, 'whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.' There is no higher act of selflessness than to protect people that cannot defend themselves.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, to pay tribute to Irena Sendler and to remind all of us to stand up against oppression and fight for those without a voice....