Irena Sendler rescued about 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. A Polish social worker and member of the underground Council to Aid Jews, known as Żegota, she entered the ghetto using her professional access and helped children escape to hiding places.
Sendler and her colleagues used dangerous routes and false identities to move children out. Some were carried through buildings, ambulances, sewers, or other concealed passages. They then placed many children with Polish families, orphanages, or convents, usually under assumed Catholic identities.
Sendler recorded children’s original names and new identities on slips of paper sealed in jars and buried in a garden. The records were intended to help reunite families after the war. Most children’s parents, however, were murdered, making reunification rare.
The Gestapo arrested Sendler in October 1943 and tortured her. She was sentenced to death but escaped after Żegota bribed officials. Sendler was later recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations. She is sometimes confused with Janusz Korczak, a Jewish educator who refused to abandon children in his care.