Dear Bellert Irena,
  
Irena Sendler passed away this week. Sendler, who lived until the age of 98, was a unique and heroic person.
Sendler rescued hundreds of children from the Warsaw Ghetto. Using her position as a social worker, she regularly entered the ghetto, smuggled the children and then placed them with Polish families and institutions.
In 1943 Sendler, who led the children' section of the Zegota organization which helped Jews during the war, was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo. She only escaped execution when Zegota managed to bribe some Gestapo officials, and she was released after withstanding severe interrogations, but she did not betray the names of her rescue confidants.
  
I met Irena in 1988, when I visited her in her small apartment in Warsaw. I remember a small, humble woman with a smile that lights up the room.
She never asked for anything for herself. When you saw Irena, you found it hard to imagine the extent of her heroic activity; an amazingly brave woman who under the watchful eyes of the Nazis smuggled children out of the ghetto, and later withstood the tortures of the Gestapo.
  
Irena's story is proof of how a small act, which started when she went into the ghetto to visit her Jewish friends, evolved into a vast rescue operation.

Her passing is another reminder of the urgency of our work, especially our work to find and honor rescuers, and to videotape those who were saved. 
                                                                                                                                      
Irena Sendler will always be remembered. Her legacy lives on.

Sincerely, 

Mordecai Paldiel 

Director of Special Projects