Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who during the Second World War saved an estimated 2,500 Jewish children, died on Monday morning in a Warsaw hospital. New Warsaw Express - Polish News and Entertainment Hi Marek Many thanks for giving us sight of that article Truly a tremendously brave woman Lest we forget Ron
What a wonderful woman. That took some courage to do what she did. As Ron says, "Lest we forget" Thanks Marek.
Social worker who saved 2,500 Jewish children in Warsaw and was tortured by the Gestapo. Irena Sendler - Telegraph
This news story gives a little more on her life after the war. Polish Holocaust hero dies at age 98 - Yahoo! News
The Righteous Among the Nations Although joining the Nazi party in 1935, (Wilhelm) Hosenfeld soon grew disillusioned with the regime and disgusted by the crimes against Poles and Jews that he became witness to. All through his military service he kept a diary in which he expressed his feelings. The texts survived because he would regularly send the notebooks home. In his writing, Hosenfeld stressed his growing disgust with the regimes’ oppression of Poles, the persecution of Polish clergy, the abuse of Jews, and, with the beginning of the “Final Solution”, his horror at the extermination of the Jewish people. In 1943, after witnessing the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, he wrote in his diary: "these animals. With horrible mass murder of the Jews we have lost this war. We have brought an eternal curse on ourselves and will be forever covered with shame. We have no right for compassion or mercy; we all have a share in the guilt. I am ashamed to walk in the city…." Hosenfeld not only expressed his deep revulsion in words, but also actively helped the victims. Leon Warm escaped from a train to Treblinka during the 1942 deportations from Warsaw. He made it back into the city, and managed to survive with the help of Hosenfeld who employed him in the sports stadium, and provided him with a false identity. His help to another Jew became famous with the film "The Pianist", based on Waldislaw Szpilman's life story. After his entire family was killed, Szpilman managed to leave the ghetto and survived on the Aryan side with the help of Polish friends [Janina Godlewska, Andrezej Bogucki and Czeslaw Lewicki were honored as Righteous Among the Nations in 1978]. After the Polish Uprising in summer 1944, the Polish population was evicted from the city, and Szpilman remained alone, hiding in the ruins of the destroyed city, hungry, frozen, frightened and with no support whatsoever. It was there that Hosenfeld found him in mid-November 1944, and helped him survive during the critical final weeks before liberation. In January 1945 Hosenfeld was taken prisoner by the Soviets. Five years later, on 7 May 1950 a military tribunal in Minsk sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The trial, so the one-page verdict stated, was held in the absence of the defense. The verdict stated that Hosenfeld had personally interrogated prisoners during the Warsaw uprising and sent them to detention, thereby strengthening Fascism in the struggle against the Soviet Union. Six months after the trial, in November 1950, Leon Warm came to visit Hosenfeld's wife in Thalau. A Polish priest who had met Hosenfeld in the POW camp had found him and told him of his rescuer's predicament. Warm, who was about to emigrate from Europe, also wrote a letter to Szpilman in Warsaw. It seems unlikely that something could have been done by the two survivors who had lost their families and who were, like others, working hard to pick up the pieces and try to build a life in a world that had little interest in the Jewish tragedy. Hosenfeld died in a Soviet prison in 1952. From a different context: "Dieu reconnaitra les Siens"...
BBC News - Anne Frank diary guardian Miep Gies dies aged 100 Miep Gies, the last surviving member of the group who helped protect Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, has died in the Netherlands aged 100.
The Israelian prime minister Peres wrote a letter to Queen Beatrix and the holocaust institute has a page dedicated to her. There are many reactions from all over the world. Hermine (Miep) & Jan Augustus Gies, Netherlands - Righteous Among the Nations Ron
On BBC-4 an account of AF's life from those who knew her both before her family went into hiding and after their capture by the SS/ Dutch collaborators. In ten - fifteen years time almost all who took part in WW2 will be gone and you have to wonder who will be left and for how long before another generations voice falls slient ? Ann Frank's legacy to the world will go on quite an achievement that one girl could put hatred and ignorance to such utter and complete shame.
