This portrait of Irena Sendler was taken circa 1930 when Irena was 20 years old. It can be found at irenasendler.org. Irena was a Polish Catholic social worker and she spearheaded the children’s division of Zegota, the Polish underground Council for Aid to Jews (Mayer).
Document Based Questions: What do you think when you look at this photo? Does Irena Sendler look like a helper? Does she look Catholic or Jewish, tall or short, quiet or loud? What can you tell about a person just by looking at them?
The photo below depicts a group of children that Irena rescued in 1943. It can be found on the NEH website here, and is also linked on my citations page. Because of Irena Sendler and her network, these children and thousands of others went on to live and thrive. Irena gave them new identities by forging documents so that they could easily hide in plain sight.
Document Based Questions: What rights do you think these children should have, and why? How did these children’s identities change over time? What responsibility did Irena Sendler have to these children (and others like them)?
“Disguised as an infection-control nurse, Sendler knocked on doors in the ghetto, asking parents and grandparents to give up their children and grandchildren so that she could smuggle them out.”
Jack Mayer, Irena Sendler and the Girls From Kansas (2020)
Because so many people were crammed into such close quarters within the ghetto, diseases were rampant. It was not uncommon for medical personnel to be in and out to treat and try to control the spread of things like typhus. Jews were more susceptible to such illnesses because they were also literally starving to death; their immune systems were not strong enough to fight off infections.
Document Based Questions: Why did nurses and other medical personnel move so freely in and out of the Warsaw ghetto? What kind of nurse did Irena pose as, and why? Does Irena look like a real nurse in this photo? Is someone’s identity based only upon their outward appearance?
Irena Sendler and the Girls from Kansas: National Endowment for the Humanities The photo below is of Irena Sendler with a group of teenage students (coincidentally from Kansas!) who helped discover her story thanks to their high school research project. They worked hard to save money to be able to travel to Poland to meet her in person in 2001 (Mayer).
Document Based Questions: How did the girls discover Irena? What did they do to spread the word about her story and her life? Who is Jack Mayer?
