Courageous Heart

The heroic story of Irena Sendler the woman credited with saving the lives of 2,500 Jewish children from Nazi-invaded Poland is coming to Television on Sunday, April 19, on Channel 11.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Irena Sendler put her life at risk day after day for years, saving 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War.

Her story, "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler," is about a Polish Catholic social worker, who wasn't even 30 years old when she led the conspiracy of women who moved in and out of the Warsaw ghetto disguised as nurses, smuggling Jewish children away from the Nazis. The group worked under the guise of attempting to prevent and contain typhus and spotted fever, as rampant diseases were a major concern for the Nazis.

Sendler had the difficult task of convincing Jewish parents to give up their children to a stranger, while risking her life. Once in her hands, the children were hidden inside boxes, coffins and suitcases to rescue them from deportation to death camps.

The children, all 2,500 of them, were given new identities and placed under the care of equally courageous Polish families and convents, with the hope that some day they would reunite with their family.

Sendler kept a hidden record of every child's birth name and location to help them after the war.

In 1943, the Nazis figured out what Sendler was doing, and they arrested and tortured her. On the day of her scheduled execution, she was rescued by the underground network with which she worked. The women had bribed the Nazi officer, who let Sendler go. Still wanted by the Gestapo, she remained in hiding until the war was over.