London tribute to woman who saved Jewish children in WWII

It documents the life and activities of Irena Sendler, a social worker who coordinated a network that saved a large number of Jewish children from the Holocaust in German Nazi-occupied Warsaw.

According to various estimates, she saved from several hundred to 2,500 children, smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and finding Christian families and monasteries to take care of them.

In 1965, Irena Sendler was recognised by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations”. She died in 2008 at the age of 98.

To mark the tenth anniversary of her death, 2018 has been officially designated in Poland as the year of Irena Sendler.

The London exhibition was organised by the “Learning from the Righteous” Foundation and the Polish Embassy in the UK.

The foundation is the brainchild of British children’s author and teacher Anthony Lishak, who for several years has been spreading the word about Poles who saved Jews during World War II in Polish and Jewish schools in the UK.

In his remarks during the exhibition opening ceremony, he described Irena Sendler as a “phenomenal figure who remains almost totally unknown in Great Britain.”

Among those attending the ceremony were the Polish ambassador to Britain, Arkady Rzegocki, and the UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues, Sir Eric Pickles.

The exhibition runs until February 2.

(mk/pk)