Some 200,000 Poles were killed during the invasion and the twenty-day terror bombing of Warsaw. before the surrender.
But the real horrors hadn't even started.
That's why we had yesterday's "Stuff Some Fourteen Year Old Girls Do" about the passing of Freddie Oversteegen who along with her older sister and and best friend, would sweet talk Nazis into "a stroll in the woods" and then assassinate them. The girls did other stuff as well, blowing up bridges and railroad tracks, smuggling Jewish kids out of The Netherlands, the usual.
stone killer
She wasn't the one in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize.
There was another gal, this one in Poland who fought the Nazis in a different manner,
This young woman saved 2500 children sometimes hauling one out of the Warsaw ghetto in a suitcase or a couple more under a caterers cart or a dozen in a truck. When the Nazi's caught and tortured her she went back to the saving-kids biz despite two broken legs, broken ankles and broken arms.
In 2007 she was nominated for the Peace Prize.
The betting markets had her as second choice behind Al Gore. There were also some Burmese Buddhist monks and a couple dozen other nominees.
Mr. Gore of course won. Well he and the UN's IPCC who had delivered the AR4 Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report in February and who were looking forward to the 13th Conference of the Parties in Bali that December.
The woman in the picture is Irena Sendler and there was no way she was going to win in 2007, no matter how many kids she saved from certain death and no matter how many of her bones the Gestapo broke.
She might have won in 2008 but she died. And the Nobel folks don't award posthumous prizes.
We noted her passing in a May 2008 post: "Irena Sendler, Nobel Peace Prize Candidate, Has Died":
Some of the headlines.
From the Telegraph:
Irena Sendler
Social worker who saved 2,500 Jewish children in Warsaw and was tortured by the Gestapo
...The Nazis took Irena Sendler to the Pawiak prison, where she was tortured; although her legs and feet were broken, and her body left permanently scarred, she refused to betray her network of helpers or the children whom she had saved. Finally, she was sentenced to death....From The Hindu: Saviour of 2,500 children
From the Kansas City Star: Polish woman championed by Kansas students dies
From the Associated Press: Polish Holocaust hero dies at age 98
From The Independent:
Pole who saved 2,500 children from the Nazis dies
From EuroNews:
Polish Holocaust heroine dies at 98
From News.AU:
Saviour of 2500 Jewish children dies
From Agence France-Presse:
Polish woman who saved 2,500 Jewish children dies
From The Herald (U.K.):
Saviour of thousands of children from Warsaw Ghetto dies at 98
From Reuters:
...Using her position as a social worker, Sendler regularly entered the ghetto, smuggling around 2,500 children out in boxes, suitcases or hidden in trolleys.We had three posts on Irena. The first "Al Gore and the Nobel Peace Prize" had the betting odds on the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize:
The children were then placed with Polish families outside the ghetto, created by Nazi Germany in 1940 for the city's half a million strong Jewish population, and given new identities.
But in 1943 Sendler, who led the children' section of the Zegota organisation which helped Jews during the war, was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo.
She only escaped execution when Zegota managed to bribe some Nazi officials, who left her unconscious but alive with broken legs and arms in the woods....
From BETUS
Who will win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize?
Irena Sendler
Martti Ahtisaari
Al Gore
+250...
Post number two talked about Irena and the kids in Kansas:
Al Gore vs.Irena Sendler: Smackdown!
A wonderful story from the Kansas City Star:
A wonderful story from the Kansas City Star:
Eight years ago, in a tiny southeast Kansas town, four girls had a goal: Tell the story of a woman who saved 2,500 children during the Holocaust.
Our third post:
Life in a Jar congratulates the recipients (Al Gore and the United Nations Council on Climate Change)...
...of the Nobel Peace Prize and salute Irena Sendler for her continued impact on the world.
Classy.From the IrenaSendler.org Website:
Protestant kids from rural Kansas, discover a Polish Catholic woman, who saved Jewish children. Irena Sendler and students from Uniontown, Kansas, they both have chosen to repair the world (Tikkun Olam)....
