Summary and Analysis of Irena's Children by Worth Books

Author:Worth Books
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worth Books
Published: 2017-04-11T14:50:37+00:00

Timeline

1910–1932: Irena Stanisława Krzyżanowska grows up Catholic in Otwock, moves to Piotrków upon her father’s death in 1917, and is accepted to the University of Warsaw in 1927.

1935–1940: Irena, married to Mietek Sendler but romantically involved with Jewish Adam Celnikier, fights anti-Semitism while working as a social worker. The Germans begin their occupation of Warsaw in 1939.

1941–1942: Helena Radlińska goes into hiding while mentoring Irena about forming a secret network dedicated to saving Jewish children. Jews are forced to move to a cordoned off section of Warsaw and exist on a starvation diet, and Irena’s network grows in order to smuggle food and medicine into the Jewish quarter.

1942: Jan Dobraczyński, a Catholic anti-Semitic supervisor at Warsaw’s welfare department, helps Irena and her network by falsifying paperwork needed to save Jewish children being ferried out of the Warsaw ghetto. He then reneges and sends thirty-two children back to the ghetto.

July 23, 1942: The Gestapo begin loading Jews from the ghetto onto trains bound for the death camp, Treblinka. Irena convinces some Jewish parents to relinquish their children so that she and her network can smuggle them out of the ghetto.

August 1942: Irena’s friends Ala Gołąb-Grynberg and Nachum Remba set up a fake medical clinic at the train station and pass themselves off as a nurse and doctor. They begin rescuing random Jews waiting to leave for Treblinka. They are unable to save the thirty-two children Jan had sent back to the ghetto.

August–September 1942: The Gestapo systematically sends Jews to Treblinka block by block in the ghetto. Jews hide in their attics and basements to avoid deportation, and Irena’s network accelerates their efforts to smuggle out children. Many Jewish children are baptized Catholic for easier hiding in convents and orphanages outside of the ghetto.

September 1942–January 1943: Irena merges her network with Żegota, a secret resistance cell, and is asked to become its new director. This allows her access to tremendous funding, allowing her to rescue more children and smuggle food and medicine into the ghetto. She also hides teens and adults running from the Nazis.

Spring 1943: The Gestapo is determined to deport any remaining Jews living in the ghetto.

April–July 1943: Young people in the ghetto organize an armed resistance against the SS who have surrounded the Jewish quarter. Irena loses her pass into the ghetto. Jews escape via secret tunnels and the sewers. A rumor circulates that the Gestapo is willing to trade Jews for Germans located abroad and those Jews who can afford the ticket would ride a train to freedom. Instead, they are sent to death camps.

October 19, 1943: Irena is arrested by the Gestapo and sent to prison where she is beaten, tortured, and has her legs and feet broken. Her friend Janka hides Irena’s lists containing the names of Jewish children and their new identities.

October 1943–January 1944: Irena is tortured by the Gestapo, but refuses to name names. On January 20, Irena is scheduled to be executed, but is able to escape thanks to a bribe Żegota pays to a Gestapo agent.

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