In an Age of Self Centeredness, Irena Sandler Challenges us to Care for the Other

By Peg Luksik
4/11/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

She did not think of herself as a hero. The 2500 children she saved and the generations that will follow them would disagree.

The idea of caring for and about someone other than the person we see in the mirror seems to be rapidly disappearing from our culture. And many of us, who are trying to hold on to the ideals of honesty and fairness and compassion, too often feel like we are fighting a losing battle. The temptation to just give up can be overwhelming.We are not the first people in history to face such temptations.

Her name was Irena Sendler. She was born in 1910, in Poland.

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HARRISBURG, PA. (Catholic Online) - Today's America seems to be dominated by the word "me". There is a continual barrage of complaints from those who aren't getting everything they think they deserve. At the same time, there is a never-ending list of stories about folks who feel no remorse about cheating others to benefit themselves.

The idea of caring for and about someone other than the person we see in the mirror seems to be rapidly disappearing from our culture.

And many of us, who are trying to hold on to the ideals of honesty and fairness and compassion, too often feel like we are fighting a losing battle. The temptation to just give up can be overwhelming.

We are not the first people in history to face such temptations. So perhaps remembering the life of one who did not give in will give us the inspiration to continue our own work.

Her name was Irena Sendler. She was born in 1910, in Poland.

She was a social worker, a Catholic Nurse, when the Nazis invaded Poland.

When the Jews were rounded up into the Warsaw Ghetto, Irena joined the Polish underground sponsored movement, Zegota (Council to Aid the Jews), and became the head of its division on children.

She obtained a pass from the Nazi Epidemic Control Department so she could enter the Ghetto. Seeing the starvation conditions and knowing that death was the final outcome for Ghetto residents, she began smuggling the children out. She hid them in toolboxes, potato sacks, gunny sacks, even coffins.

The church was an active assistant. One church had two doors, one on the Ghetto side and the other on the "Aryan" side. The children entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians, with false documents. Sendler reported that she sent most of the children to religious establishments because she knew that she could count on the sisters.

The children were given false identities and placed in adoptive homes, orphanages, and convents. Irena later stated that no one had ever refused to take a child from her. Even though, in Poland, anyone found aiding a Jew would be executed with his entire family.

Irena noted the children's original names and their new identities, and buried the records in jars beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's back yard, across the street from German barracks. She hoped that she could someday dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past.

In all, the jars contained the names of 2,500 children.

In 1943 Irena was arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, who broke her feet and legs. In spite of the torture, Irena did not betray the identities of any of the adoptive families, her associates, or the Jewish children.

She was sentenced to death, but escaped and lived in hiding for the rest of the war.

After the war she dug up the jars and tried to reunite the children she had placed with their natural relatives. Sadly, most of the Jewish families had perished during the Holocaust.

Irena's story was unnoticed until the year 2000, when four high school students in Kansas wrote about her as part of a history project.

She did not think of herself as a hero. The 2500 children she saved and the generations that will follow them would disagree.

And as for us, how can we read of a story like Irena's and even THINK about quitting?

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Peg Luksik is the Chairman of the Center for American Heritage. Learn more about the heritage of this exceptional nation at www.centerforamericanheritage.com

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Irena Sendler, Germany, heroism, Jewish, Nazi occupation, Peg Luksik

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1 - 10 of 10 Comments

Chris
1 year ago
@nd reply to Juneau. Here is what defines a miracle, "the highest degree in miracles comprises those works wherein something is done by God, that nature can never do"!

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRIGERpDCZg&feature=related

See: http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

Open your heart and you will understand. May God Bless with the courarge to be objective!
Chris
1 year ago
Well it is true "to those who believe no explaintion is needed. To those who don't believe no explaintion is possible"! It rings true in astheism judging by Juneau's response. Remarkably, science is the astheist's religion but as always true miracles are dismissed as "claims" that science has not figured out yet.Did you read the miracles of Lourdes and the science that backed up that story before you dismissed them as claims not figured out yet? You see with facts such as miracles that prove a contray belief system the closed minded must dismiss them otherwise they would be obligated to covert their thinking. In this case you have 5000 cures but only 67 that science can not prove happened any other way but by God! And it's an ad hominen argument to say society needs to be protected from people of faith. Misuse of an idea, in this case faith, does not make faith less credible. Yes,many faithful believe we are spirtually blinded in this life to the facts that will convince athesit like Juneau there is a God and all will be explained after we die. Sadly atheists remind me of the people at the foot of the cross who demand their miracle of Christ coming down from the cross before they believe rather than believing His miracle of the resurrection!
Juneau Alaska
1 year ago
Chris, (attempt #2 at a reply)

Have you considered that you find evolution by natural selection odd because you don't understand it? The evidence-based theory explains precisely how we get the diversity of life we see today. No, scientists do not yet know how chemistry became biology (or dust as you say), but they likely will some day.

Atheists aren't the only ones who deny miracles. Churchmen, such as former chief Vatican astronomer Fr. George Coyne, have difficulty with them too. There are precious few miracles that are required for orthodoxy, in fact. In all cases of so-called miracles, there are more plausible explanations than what are given through faith. Sometimes, even saying "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer instead of saying, "Yahweh did it." Please think about that.

It is nonsensical to claim there is a physics beyond our understanding. How can you know this? You can't. It is a faith claim.

Actually, in a certain sense, truth tends to be simple when understood, not complex, Chris. The history of science over the last 400yrs is unraveling complexity into simplicity. Don't misunderstand, simple does not mean simplistic here.

Your final saying is a cop-out and not at all helpful for people who sincerely strive to discover the beauty and elegance that is reality.

Mike
Juneau Alaska
1 year ago
Oh, and Chris, there is nothing in the TOU that prevents an atheist from posting, is there? Really?

I post here because religion affects ME and my family. Religion is pervasive, more than you can possibly imagine since you are in the eye of the storm.

To ignore religion is to ignore an important phenomenon. Besides, I was once a practicing Catholic, I know how you folks think. :-j

Mike
Juneau Alaska
1 year ago
Simply stated, you misunderstand, as many do, the definition of atheism or atheist.

Atheism has one definition: lack of a belief in the supernatural (meaning gods, God, Yahweh, Odin, Athena, etc.)

That's it.

But it doesn't matter, people of faith will not accept this. Atheism does not mean evolution. It does not mean gay rights. It does not even mean intelligence. Atheism does not mean upright citizen even though jails are chock full of Christians and other people of faith whereas atheists make up the smallest percentage of criminals. It's less than one percent and that is properly taking population into consideration.

Less than 1% in jail. Society needs to be protected from criminals who are overrepresented by people of faith. Just think about that. And yet atheists are trusted on the same level as rapists. (Oregon study just this year).

If you can do one thing for me Chris, it is to understand what atheism is and what it is not.

Cheers.
Chris
1 year ago
I find it odd that an atheist is bogging on a Catholic web site. Anyway, when I read or see people acknowledge they are atheist, as Juneau Alaska does here in the comment section, I don't understand their thinking. Regarding the resurrection of physical bodies, surely the reconstitution of a human body from dust, and ash is no more far-fetched than the atheists' contention that mud morphed into living organisms in a pond.
Atheists lose any credibility with me when they analytically deny that miracles can happen.
I simply have to read of some of the extraordinary healing's of Lourdes or the overwhelming testimony of eyewitnesses of the Sun Miracle of Fatima to know that they are purposely ignorant. There is a physics beyond our realm and understanding. My evidence is to be found on the links below. Here's why religious "see Jesus" and help! Bravo to you Irena Sendler!

http://www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/approved_apparitions/Lourdes/miracles1.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBIs8cuIwTo (See minute 4 on to see real people staring at the sun)

I like that phrase. "Purposely ignorant". In other words, people who don't want to do their homework on issues, but instead believe what they want to believe because it suits their lifestyle. It applies to a lot of erroneousness thinking not just religious issues.

Real truth on any major issue is usually a long explanation and requires research, but most are satisfied smug sarcasm as if they have the corner on smartness rather than having humility of thought and follow real evidence. So the old saying applies, "to those who do believe, no explaination is needed. To those who don't believe noe explaination is possible"!
Richard Gosche
1 year ago
Bishop Sheen, in his "From the Angel's blackboard" ,said it best.

"Two people on ice can fall,but if one of them is wearing a silk hat, that person will look funnier than the one who is dressed humbly.Self exhaltation humiliated and dignity punctured amuse us... and they may even amuse God."
Brian A Cook
1 year ago
How do you explain the multitude of human-rights and civil-rights activists and organizations?
Juneau Alaska
1 year ago
I find great difficulty ignoring the fact that the motivation to help others amongst the religious is by "seeing Jesus" in the downtrodden, the naked, the hungry, the lost.

As an atheist, not a person of faith, I see no reward in heaven awaiting me if I do good. I do good for goodness sake. This teaching seems to be the moral path I would rather have all of humanity humbly adopt.

Mike
abey
1 year ago
The delusion of the "I" , "my" & " me" of man originates from the words "Ye be as gods" transferred from satan to Eve, which to the new Eve in Christ reads "Thy Handmaid", wherein the me & mine is corrected to thee & thine to God & man. To this in the truth the 'I' applies only to one which is to His very name "I AM" to GOD.

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