Learning Activities

• What are the lessons that we can learn from the life of Irena Sendler and her involvement in Zegota? 
• How can individuals today pay tribute to Irena's memory by getting involved in peace activities that help save some of the world's peoples? 
• Why is it important for the message of Yad Vashem to be heard beyond the borders of Israel?  How can communities across the world recognize the good works of others?
• Who are the people in your community who are important to recognize and honor?  How can you and others go about doing that?

Irena Sendler never thought of herself as extraordinary or a hero.  Below are three quotes from her.  Consider her position.  Write a tribute to Irena and incorporate some of the statements offered here.

We witnessed terrible scenes. Father agreed, but mother didn't. We sometimes had to leave those unfortunate families without taking their children from them. I'd go back there the next day and often found that everyone had been taken to the Umschlagsplatz railway siding for transport to the death camps.

We who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes. That term irritates me greatly. The opposite is true – I continue to have qualms of conscience that I did so little. I could have done more. This regret will follow me to my death.

We who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes. That term irritates me greatly. The opposite is true – I continue to have qualms of conscience that I did so little. I could have done more. This regret will follow me to my death.

Comment on the portions of the document, Protest, written by Zofia Kossak a document which influenced and united many Poles in the efforts of helping Jews. Selections from Protest follow:

• All perish. Poor and rich, old, women, men, youngsters, infants, Catholics dying with the name of Jesus and Mary together with Jews. Their only guilt is that they were born Jewish condemned to extermination by Hitler.
• The world is looking at these atrocities, the most horrible throughout the whole history of mankind, and is silent.
• England is silent, so is America, even the international Jewry is silent, usually so sensitive to all harm to their people. Silent are Poles.
• We are required by God to protest. God who forbids us to kill. We are required by our Christian consciousness. Every human being has the right to be loved by his fellowmen. Blood of the defenseless cries to heaven for revenge. Those who oppose our protest – are not Catholics.

Zegota Council

Zofia Kossak-Szczucka was a co-founder of the wartime Polish organization Żegota, set up to assist Poland's Jews in escaping the Holocaust.  In 1943 she was arrested by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, but survived the war.  Investigate how Kossak-Szcrucka’s life continued after World War II.

 Hall of the Righteous Gentiles

In 1965, Irena Sendler was one of the first individuals to be honored as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem.  Research Yad Vashem and find out others who have received this award.

On November 16, 1940, building a wall with armed guards; the Nazis closed the Warsaw ghetto.  It was estimated that approximately 400,000 people lived in an area that was split into two areas, the "small ghetto,” generally inhabited by richer Jews and the "large ghetto,” where conditions were difficult. The two ghettos were linked by a single footbridge. Select any of the topics below to expand your understanding of this segment of history:

• Nazis using the ghetto as a holding place for Jews and Gypsies from other areas
• Daily life and conditions in the ghetto
• Armed resistance and uprising by occupants of the ghetto
• Children's author, pediatrician, and child pedagogist, Janusz Korczak.
• Resistance fighter, Tosia Altman, escaped the Ghetto in 1943 uprising through the sewers. Died afterwards after she was caught by the Gestapo.
• The Nazi leader responsible for the liquidation of the Ghetto, Odilo Globocnik
• Mila 18, book by Leon Uris about the Warsaw Uprising

Zegota is an anarchist hardcore punk and post-hardcore band originally from Greensboro, North Carolina, formed around 1996-1997. The name alludes to Żegota, or The Council to Aid the Jews, which saved the lives of many Europeans during the Holocaust.  Report on the music of Zegota.