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,
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.
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