Irena’s Children
by Tilar J. Mazzeo is the true and amazing account of Irena Sandler. Irena has
been called the female Oskar Schindler as she rescued an estimated 2,500
children from the Warsaw ghetto. The story opens in 1942 when Irena realizes
that the Gestapo is coming to arrest her and she makes every effort to save the
list she has of the names of the children and where they have gone. As the
general of an underground army, Irena and her network has successfully hidden
Jewish children in Warsaw and beyond. The story then takes the reader back to
her beginnings. As the only child of a Catholic doctor and his wife, Irena
learns from a very early age to care for all people regardless of religion. If
they are in need and you are able to help, you are to help. This philosophy
helps mold Irena’s sense of social obligation to help those less fortune. As
the war breaks out and the Jews are being rounded up and pushed into the
ghetto, Irena begins her plan to save all she can.
Irena’s Children
is an amazing story of one woman’s determination to stand up to injustice even
if it means her own death. Told from her birth to the end of the war, Irena’s
story is one of danger and ingenuity in order to smuggle children out of the
ghetto. An amazing story which remained untold until a group of American
schoolchildren discovered her story and created a play which brought her name
out of the shadows. When she died in 2008 at the age of 98, she was still very
humble about her efforts. I highly recommend Irena’s Children. Her story needs to be told and retold so that the
contributions of Irena and others will not be forgotten in the horrors of
Holocaust.
Irena’s Children
is available on
Amazon and Barnes and Noble
in hardcover and
eBook
No comments:
Post a Comment