Happy Thanksgiving from the Life in a Jar family. We wish you the happiest greetings this Thanksgiving season.
May you and your family enjoy these holidays and share the joy with others. As the leaves of autumn fall, we are thankful for everyone in the very large Irena Sendler family (all those who are sharing her story with the world.)
We try to share information on Irena Sendler and her network at various times. Our new exhibit at the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes is getting rave reviews with its Irena exhibit.
Throughout the years in November, Irena experienced a great variety of emotion and experience.
For example:
1939: The German invasion was mostly complete, with scattered fighting all over Poland. Irena watched with horror with underground reports that German Operation Tannenberg in Bydgoszcz, Poland saw the invading troops executed 600-800
Polish/Jewish citizens.
1940: The Warsaw Ghetto was established in October and November of this year. Irena would later say she had the greatest of fears for her Jewish friends. She had already started to organize her network and already started to hide some Jewish families.
1941: The Warsaw Ghetto was becoming a place of total horror. Starvation and disease was everywhere. The rescues had already started by Irena and her network.
1942: Most of the children and adults rescued by Irena and her network were rescued in the early summer of this year. Now the tremendous job of hiding them, moving them from home to home and making sure of their security in convents and orphanages, was of upmost importance.
1943: Irena was captured by the Gestapo in October and would spend a horrible November in Pawiak Prison.
1944: Irena was bribed out of prison and by November of this year, began to see light in the darkness. She was in hiding with Stefan (the Jewish man she would later marry), and the Allies were marching across Europe.
1945: The war was over and now ‘the lists.’