If a man is drowning, you have to help him.
Irina Sendler said, "My parents taught me that if a man is drowning, it doesn’t matter what his religion or nationality is. You have to help him."
When the Nazis began to trap the Jewish quarter in Warsaw,
Irina sneaked into the neighborhood with official papers, saying she was there to check for diseases. But her real goal was to save the babies from death.
She carried a medical box and carefully hid some babies inside it. Often, she used potato carts to hide other children and move them outside the trapped area, or covered them with blankets to keep them hidden from the guards.
She had a well-trained dog that barked loudly whenever the guards came near, to distract them and cover the babies’ cries and screams.
Irina wrote their real names on small pieces of tissue, put them inside bottles, and buried the bottles under an apple tree at a friend’s house. She believed that one day, someone would find those bottles.
The Nazis caught her and tortured her,
breaking her legs and feet, but she never told them about any child. She kept their secrets safe.
Her friends bribed the guards and got her released.
During the war, she saved about 2,500 children.
When asked why she risked everything, she simply answered,
"I couldn’t leave them."
Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world.
And sometimes you can’t save one life, sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes there’s no way out for anyone, but … try anyway. Because it matters anyway.
And maybe no one will ever know. But maybe someday, more than a hundred years later, some stranger will cry into her coffee because of what you died trying.
The story doesn’t end here: In truth, people usually don’t regret what they did, but they regret more what they didn’t do.
So today, I want to share why this story hurts so close to home. My four children and I live in a small tent that is no bigger than 4 by 3 meters. Water was seeping from underneath, and we wake up with our mattresses wet. My children’s coughs and illnesses do not stop all night, especially my baby, Amir. Things got worse when a tick bit a three-month-old baby in our camp, causing him deformities and poisoning.
My wife and I take turns staying awake to guard the children. We only sleep for two hours at a time, switching shifts throughout the night. The destruction around us has made our tent and its surroundings full of snakes, rats, and other pests. Every night, we hear their sounds and movements.
This situation is very exhausting for us and our children. We are trying to rent a house, but we are stuck and really need your support and donations. If you are able to help us leave this tent and reach a safer place, it would mean everything to us. Any support, even small, can help change our children’s nights into something safer.
