In 1945, Warsaw was bleak and treeless: A. M. Rosenthal, “The Trees of Warsaw,” New York Times, www.nytimes.com/1983/08/07/magazine/the-trees-of-warsaw.html.
Irena’s wartime journals and account books, like so much else in the city, were lost: “Fundacja Taubego na rzecz Życia i Kultury Żydowskiej przedstawia Ceremonię Wręczenia Nagrody im. Ireny Sendlerowej,” 2013 program. Also archives of Mirosława Pałaszewska and personal correspondence.
Irena gave the list to Dr. Adolf Berman: Ibid. See also obituary, “Irena Sendler, Saviour of Children in the Warsaw Ghetto, Died on May 12th, Aged 98,” Economist, May 24, 2008, www.economist.com/node/11402658.
“Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes”: “Irena Sendlerowa,” Association of “Children of the Holocaust” in Poland.
Jaga Piotrowska and Jan Dobraczyński also made their own lists of the Jewish children: Archives of Mirosława Pałaszewska and personal correspondence; also Michał Głowiński, The Black Seasons, 87.
“When Poland was liberated in 1945, a Jewish community was established”: Archives of Mirosława Pałaszewska; also Michał Głowiński, The Black Seasons, 86.
“During the conversation,” Jaga said, “we were told”: Ibid.
When Mietek returned to Poland from a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, Irena was already five months pregnant: Iwona Rojek, “To była matka całego świata—córka Ireny Sendler opowiedziała nam o swojej mamie,” Echo Dnia Śilętokrzyskie, December 9, 2012, www.echodnia.eu/swietokrzyskie/wiadomosci/kielce/art/8561374,to-byla-matka-calego-swiata-corka-ireny-sendler-opowiedziala-nam-o-swojej-mamie,id,t.html.
his Jewish mother, Leokadia, was furious: Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej.
“the brightest star in the black sky of the occupation”: Michał Głowiński, The Black Seasons.
CODA: THE DISAPPEARING STORY OF IRENA SENDLER, 1946–2008
“There are times when she avoids me,” Irena wrote of that long postwar friendship: Irena Sendler, “Youth Associations of the Warsaw Ghetto.”
“In my dreams,” Irena said, “I still hear the cries”: Joseph Bottum, “Good People, Evil Times: The Women of Żegota,” First Things, April 17, 2009, www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2009/04/good-people-evil-times-the-women-of-Zegota.
When Adam Celnikier died of heart trouble in 1961: Anna Mieszkowska, Prawdziwa Historia Ireny Sendlerowej, 20.
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial organization in Israel, awarded Irena Sendler: Alexandra Sližová, “Osudy zachráněných dětí Ireny Sendlerové.”
So, too, in time were Jaga Piotrowska, Maria Kukulska: “Fundacja Taubego na rzecz Życia i Kultury Żydowskiej przedstawia Ceremonię Wręczenia Nagrody im. Ireny Sendlerowej,” 2013 program.
“We estimate (today after 40 years it is difficult to determine it exactly) the number of children”: Magdelena Grochowska, “Lista Sendlerowej.”
“Every time people said that she saved 2,500 Jewish children’s lives”: Yoram Gross, personal correspondence.
“I want everyone to know that, while I was coordinating our efforts, we were about twenty”: Joachim Wieler, “The Long Path to Irena Sendler.”
After the war, when Irena made a list of all the people in Warsaw: Magdelena Grochowska, “Lista Sendlerowej.”
“If we knew,” he told the crowd that day, “the names of all the noble people who risked their lives to save Jews”: Hans G. Furth, “One Million Polish Rescuers of Hunted Jews?,” Journal of Genocide Research 1, no. 2 (1999): 227–32.
“I only have recourse to the memories burned into my mind by the events of those days”: Irena Sendler, autobiographical notes, ZIH archives, Materialy Zabrane w Latach, 1995–2003, sygn. S/353, file IS-04-85-R.
In 2003, some of the children she helped to save wrote a joint letter: Aleksandra Zawłocka, “The Children of Ms. Sendler,” Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, www.polish-jewish-heritage.org/eng/The_Children_of_Ms_Sendler.htm; also Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2010, “Irena Sendler,” Polscy Sprawiedliwi (Polish Righteous), www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/cms/biography-83/.
“Heroes,” she said, “do extraordinary things”: Scott T. Allison, George R. Goethals, Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, 24.
“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history”: Anil Dutta Mishra, Inspiring Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi, Delhi: Concept Publishing, 2008, 36.
Additional sources consulted for this book include: Halina Grubowska, Ta, Która Ratowała Żydów: rzecz o Irenie Sendlerowej, Warsaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma, 2014; Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, “Powstanie Ligi do Walki z Rasizmem w 1946 r.,” Więź (1998): 238–45; Tomasz Szarota, “Ostatnia Droga Doktora: Rozmowa z Ireną Sendlerową,” Historia, vol. 21, May 24, 1997, 94; Janina Sacharewicz, “Irena Sendlerowa: Działanie z Potrzeby Serca,” Słowo Żydowskie, April 20, 2007; Mary Skinner, Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers (documentary film), 2011; “Bo Ratowała Życie,” Gość Warszawski, no. 6, February 11, 2007; and Abhijit Thite, The Other Schindler . . . Irena Sendler: Savior of the Holocaust Children, trans. Priya Gokhale, Pune, India: Ameya Prakashan, 2010.
Bibliography
[Anon.] “50 Razy Kara Śmierci: Z Jadwigą Piotrowską,” May 11, 1986, ZIH archives, Materialy Zabrane w Latach, 1995–2003, sygn. S/353.
[Anon.] “Ala Gołąb [Golomb] Grynberg,” Warsaw Ghetto Database, Polish Center for Holocaust Research, http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?mod=view_record&rid=07051998094230000004&tid=osoby&lang=en.
[Anon.] “Bo Ratowała Życie,” Gość Warszawski, no. 6, February 11, 2007.
[Anon.] “Edwin Weiss,” Warsaw Ghetto Database, Polish Center for Holocaust Research, http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?mod=view_record&rid=09121996103042000001&tid=osoby.
[Anon.] “Grojanowski Report,” Yad Vashem, http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206317.pdf.
[Anon.] “Irena Sendlerowa,” Association of “Children of the Holocaust” in Poland, www.dzieciholocaustu.org.pl/szab58.php?s=en_sendlerowa.php.
[Anon.] “Jadwiga Maria Józefa Piotrowska,” Geni database, http://www.geni.com/people/Jadwiga-Piotrowska/6000000015472386167.
[Anon.] “Janusz Korczak,” Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw, www.diapozytyw.pl/en/site/ludzie/.
[Anon.] “Marek Edelman: Last Surviving Leader of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Against the Nazis,” Independent, October 7, 2009, www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/marek-edelman-last-surviving-leader-of-the-1943-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-against-the-nazis-1798644.html.
[Anon.] “Nachum Remba,” Warsaw Ghetto Database, Polish Center for Holocaust Research, http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?mod=view_record&rid=05011904155335000002&tid=osoby&lang=en.
[Anon.] “Rediscover Polish Scouting,” Polish Scouting and Guiding Association, http://issuu.com/zhp_pl/docs/rediscoverpolishscouting.
[Anon.] “Stanisława Bussold,” Museum of the History of Polish Jews, www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/family/331,bussold-stanislawa/.
[Anon.] “The Warsaw Ghetto: Stroop’s Report on the Battles in the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt (May 16, 1943),” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/sswarsaw.html.
[Anon.] “The Woman Who Smuggled Children from the Ghetto,” Jewniverse, February 15, 2013, http://thejewniverse.com/2013/the-woman-who-smuggled-children-from-the-ghetto/.
[Anon.] “Zamordowani w różnych rejonach Warzawy,” Więźniowie Pawiaka [Victims of Pawiak in Warsaw data], www.stankiewicze.com/pawiak/warszawa4.htm.
[Anon.] “Życie Juliana Grobelnego,” October 3, 2007, http://grju93brpo.blogspot.ca/2007/10/ycie-juliana-grobelnego.html.
[Anon.] “Fundacja Taubego na rzecz Życia i Kultury Żydowskiej przedstawia Ceremonię Wręczenia Nagrody im. Ireny Sendlerowej,” October 23, 2013 program, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, http://nagrodairenysendler
owej.pl/dir_upload/download/thumb/9b515fb73c99cb31408f589b0b27.pdf.
[Anon.] “Terror Against the Intelligentsia and Clergy,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/learn/students/learning-materials-and-resources/poles-victims-of-the-nazi-era/terror-against-the-intelligentsia-and-clergy.
[Anon.] Transcripts of the Eichmann trial, Nizkor Project, www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-025-04.html.
[Anon.] “Life and Activity of Helena Twóczość Radlińskie,” http://sciaga.pl/tekst/69744-70-zycie_twoczosc_i_dzialalnosc_heleny_radlinskiej.
[Anon.] “Adam Żurawin,” Warsaw Ghetto Database, Polish Center for Holocaust Research, http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?mod=view_record&rid=27032003204554000076&tid=osoby&lang=en.
[Anon.] “Adolf Abraham Berman,” Yad Vashem, www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205996.pdf.
[Anon.] “Barbara Dietrych Wachowska,” Cyclopedia.net, http://pl.cyclopaedia.net/wiki/Barbara_Dietrych-Wachowska.
[Anon.] “Central Welfare Council, Poland,” Yad Vashem, www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205913.pdf.
[Anon.] “Deportations to and from the Warsaw Ghetto,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005413.
[Anon.] “Directive No. 1 for the Conduct of the War,” Avalon Project: Yale Law School, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/document/wardir1.htm.
[Anon.] “Gestapo Headquarters: Szucha Avenue and Pawiak Prison—Warsaw,” 2007, Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team, www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/poland/pawaiak.html.
[Anon.] “Gestapo Torture of Jews in Warsaw Prisons Reported, List of Guilty Nazis,” October 19, 1942, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, www.jta.org/1942/10/19/archive/gestapo-torture-of-jews-in-warsaw-prisons-reported-list-of-guilty-nazis-published.
[Anon.] “Irena Sendler Award for Repairing the World,” program description, Centrum Edukacji Obywatelskiej, www.ceo.org.pl/pl/sendler/news/program-description.
[Anon.] “Irena Sendler, Saviour of Children in the Warsaw Ghetto, Died on May 12th, Aged 98,” Economist, May 24, 2008, www.economist.com/node/11402658.
[Anon.] “Judischer Ordnungsdienst,” This Month in Holocaust History, Yad Vashem, www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/resources/jewish_police.asp.
[Anon.] “Janusz Korczak: A Polish Hero at the Jewish Museum,” Culture 24, December 7, 2006, www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/art41997.
[Anon.] “K. Dargielowa,” Warsaw Ghetto Database, Polish Center for Holocaust Research, http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?mod=view_record&rid=20051997191448000001&tid=osoby&lang=en.
[Anon.] “Maria Palester,” Museum of the History of Polish Jews, http://www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/family/434,palester-maria/.
[Anon.] “Nachum Remba,” Warsaw Ghetto Database, Polish Center for Holocaust Research, http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?mod=view_record&rid=05011904155335000002&tid=osoby&lang=en.
[Anon.] “New Book Full of ‘Lies and Libel’ Says Son of Władysław Szpilman,” Polskie Radio, broadcast and transcript, November 5, 2011, www2.polskieradio.pl/eo/dokument.aspx?iid=142897.
[Anon.] “Otwoccy Sprawiedliwi,” Gazeta Otwocka, July 2012, www.otwock.pl/gazeta/2012/sprawiedliwi.pdf.
[Anon.] “Piotrków: Pamiątkowa tablica ku czci Sendlerowej,” ePiotrkow.pl, www.epiotrkow.pl/news/Piotrkow-Pamiatkowa-tablica-ku-czci-Sendlerowej-,2801.
[Anon.] “The 72nd Anniversary of the Creation of the Council to Aid Jews,” Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, December 3, 2014, www.jhi.pl/en/blog/2014-12-03-the-72nd-anniversary-of-the-creation-of-the-council-to-aid-jews.
[Anon.] “Warsaw,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069.
[Anon.] “Aktion Erntefest (Operation “Harvest Festival”),” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005222.
[Anon.] IPN TV, “Relacja Piotra Zettingera o Ucieczce z Warszawskiego Getta” (video interview with Piotr Zettinger), www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY3WxXUiYzo.
[Anon.] Jewish Historical Institute Association of Warsaw, Virtual Shtetl Project, “Janusz Korczak’s Orphanage in Warsaw,” trans. Ewelina Gadomska, http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/warszawa/39,heritage-sites/3518,janusz-korczak-s-orphanage-in-warsaw-92-krochmalna-street-until-1940-/.
[Anon.] State University of New York at Buffalo/Jagiellonian University, “Slow Extermination: Life and Death in the Warsaw Ghetto,” Info Poland, http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/web/history/WWII/ghetto/slow.html.
[Frank, Hans.] Diary of Hans Frank, National Archives of the United States, Washington, DC, publication T992, microfilm, www.archives.gov/research/captured-german-records/microfilm/t992.pdf.
[Jankowska-Tobijasiewicz, Barbara.] “Irenę Sendlerową i Barbarę Ditrich: niezwykłe sąsiadki z ul. Ludwiki wspomina Barbara Jankowska-Tobijasiewicz,” Urząd Dzielnicy Wola, January 28, 2010, file 46/347, www.wola.waw.pl/page/341,internetowe-wydanie-kuriera-wolskiego—-wszystkie-numery.html?date=2010-01-00&artykul_id=394.
[Papuzińska-Beksiak, Joanna.] “Interview with Joanna Papuzińska-Beksiak,” Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego, oral history archives, January 13, 2012, http://ahm.1944.pl/Joanna_Papuzinska-Beksiak/1.
[Sendler, Irena.] “Address by Irena Sendeler [sic],” Association of “Children of the Holocaust” in Poland, interviews with Irena Sendler, www.dzieciholocaustu.org.pl/szab58.php?s=en_sendlerowa001_02.php.
[Sendler, Irena.] “Irena Sendler Tells the Story of Janusz Korczak,” Gariwo/Gardens of the Righteous World-Wide Committee, documentary/video interview with Irena Sendler, http://en.gariwo.net/pagina.php?id=9114.
[Sendler, Irena.] “Irena Sendlerowa,” Geni database, www.geni.com/people/Irena-Sendlerowa/6000000019948138463.
[Zgrzembska, Janina.] “An Interview with Irena Sendler’s Daughter, Janina Zgrzembska,” Museum of the History of Polish Jews, www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/cms/news-archive/858,an-interview-with-irena-sendler-s-daughter-janina-zgrzembska/.
Ackerman, Diane. The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.
Adler, Stanislaw. In the Warsaw Ghetto: 1940–1943, An Account of a Witness, trans. Sara Philip. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1982.
Apfelbaum, Marian. Two Flags: Return to the Warsaw Ghetto. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2007.
Arad, Yitzhak. “The Nazi Concentration Camps: Jewish Prisoner Uprisings in the Treblinka and Sobibor Extermination Camps,” Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Yad Vashem International Conference, Jerusalem, January 1980, Jewish Virtual Library, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/resistyad.html.
Arad, Yitzhak. Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps.Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
Axelrod, Toby. “Treblinka Survivor Attends Berlin Ceremony,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 1, 2005, www.jta.org/2005/08/01/life-religion/features/treblinka-survivor-attends-berlin-ceremony.
Barré, David and Agata Mozolewska. Elle, elle a sauvé les autres . . . Paris: Éditions du Cosmogone, 2009.
Bartoszewski, Władysław and Zofia Lewinówna. Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej: Polacy z pomocą Żydom, 1939–1945. Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2007.
Bartoszewski, Władysław. “Powstanie Ligi do Walki z Rasizmem w 1946 r.,” Więź (1998): 238–45.
Bartoszewski, Władysław. 1859 Dni Warszawy, Kracow: Znak, 1974.
Bartoszewski, Władysław. The Warsaw Ghetto: A Christian’s Testimony, trans. Stephen J. Cappellari. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987.
Biernacki, Andrzej. Zatajony artysta. O Wacławie Borowym, 1890–1950. Lublin: Norbertinum, 2005.
Bingham, Marjorie Wall. “Women and the Warsaw Ghetto: A Moment to Decide,” World History Connected, http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/6.2/bingham.html.
Blobaum, Robert, ed. Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland. Ithaca: Cornell Un
iversity Press, 2005.
Bogner, Nahum. “The Convent Children: The Rescue of Jewish Children in Polish Convents During the Holocaust,” Yad Vashem, www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/pdf/resources/nachum_bogner.pdf.
Bogner, Nahum. At the Mercy of Strangers: The Rescue of Jewish Children with Assumed Identities in Poland. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009.
Brojek, Paweł. “Piąta rocznica śmierci Ireny Sendlerowej: Sprawiedliwej wśród Narodów Świata,” Prawy, May 12, 2013, www.prawy.pl/wiara/3049-piata-rocznica-smierci-ireny-sendlerowej-sprawiedliwej-wsrod-narodow-swiata.
British Broadcasting Corporation, “On This Day: 1939: Germany Invades Poland,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/1/newsid_3506000/3506335.stm.
Budrewicz, Olgierd. Warszawa w Starej Fotografii. Olszanica: Wydawnictwo BoSZ, 2012.
Bülow, Louis. “Irena Sendler: An Unsung Heroine,” www.auschwitz.dk/sendler.htm.
Cegielski, Tadeusz. “Liberum Conspiro, or the Polish Masonry between the Dictatorship and Totalitarianism, 1926–1989,” Le Communisme et les Elites en Europe Centrale, March 31, 2004, École Normale Supérieure, colloquium presentation, www1.ens.fr/europecentrale/colloque_elites2004/4Documents/Resumes/Cegielski_resum.htm.
Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Poland, New York: Howard Fertig, 1982.
Cesarani, David and Sarah Kavanaugh. Holocaust: Jewish Confrontations with Persecution and Mass Murder, vol. 4 of The Holocaust: Critical Concepts in Historical Study. London: Routledge, 2004.
Charniewitch-Lubel, Deborah, “Kolno Girls in Auschwitz,” in Kolno Memorial Book, ed. Aizik Remba and Benjamin Halevy, Tel Aviv: Kolner Organization and Sifirat Poalim, 1971, www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/kolno/kole056.html.
Commission of History at the Polish Nurses’ Association, “The Nursing School at the Orthodox Jew Hospital at Czyste District in Warsaw,” Virtual Museum of Polish Nursing, http://www.wmpp.org.pl/en/nursing-schools/the-nursing-school-at-the-orthodox-jew-hospital-at-czyste-district-in-warsaw.html.
Czerniakow, Adam. Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom, ed. Raul Hilberg et al. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999.
Irena's Children Page 35