The difference of one

 

She carried out tremendous acts of humanitarian aid under the most dangerous circumstances with stealth and total selflessness. And last week, she slipped into eternity with nearly as little recognition as she enjoyed in her lifetime of amazing heroism.

Here’s the news story one of my colleagues passed along, a stunning account of boundless human courage.

Fate may have led Irena Sendler to the moment almost 70 years ago when she began to risk her life for the children of strangers. But for this humble Polish Catholic social worker, who was barely 30 when one of history’s most nightmarish chapters unfolded before her, the pivotal influence was something her parents had drummed into her.

“I was taught that if you see a person drowning,” she said, “you must jump into the water to save them, whether you can swim or not.”

When the Nazis occupying Poland began rounding up Jews in 1940 and sending them to the Warsaw ghetto, Sendler plunged in.

With daring and ingenuity, she saved the lives of more than 2,500 Jews, most of them children, a feat that went largely unrecognized until the last years of her life.

Read the amazing story, it’s a testament to the power of love. Irena Sendler was finally honored late in life, recognition she never sought or wanted.

Last year, Sendler was honored by the Polish Senate and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which brought dozens of reporters to her door. She told one of them she was wearying of the attention.

“Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth,” she said, “and not a title to glory.”

One of my other colleagues who read the story sent this response, which captures the great nobility and dignity of the human spirit evident here so powerfully.

Years ago I picked up a book at the library called The Rescuers — about these various people, some Christian and some not, who rescued otherwise-doomed Jews in the Hitler era. Some had countenances that radiated goodness, like this Polish woman. Some looked just pancake-common. Some were deeply religious. Some were not. Intellectuals and illiterates, monarchists and socialists, all kinds. I read the book very closely to try to see if there was some link, something they all had in common.

As near as I could see, it was this: in their growing-up years, they had all seen their parents helping the needy, the sick, the down-and-out. They grew up thinking “Someone needs help, you help them.”

The authors asked each person how long it took them, once they saw the immediate situation, to make the decision to step in and help the Jewish neighbor, co-worker, perfect stranger, knowing the consequences could be torture and death for themselves and their families. I remember their answers were mostly on the order of “Oh, it took a minute. I had to call my wife and ask how many beds we had room for in the old root cellar.”

Or, “Decision? This was a decision? I just did it.”

They did it because they were raised to think “That’s what you do.”

Irena Sendler. Rest in peace.