Voting Station

Irena Sendler

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Nurse

The Resume

    (February 15, 1910-May 12, 2008)
    Born in Otwock, Poland
    Birth name was Irena Krzyżanowska
    Nurse and social worker
    Joined the Polish resistance group Zegota during World War II
    Organized a network that smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto
    Honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel (1965)

Why she might be annoying:

    She married and divorced Mieczyslaw Sendler twice.
    Poland's Communist government kept her from traveling to Israel when she was named Righteous Among the Nations.
    She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but lost to Al Gore (2007).

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was suspended from the University of Warsaw after she defaced her grade card to protest against Jews being seated separately from Christians.
    As a member of the Social Welfare Department, she was allowed into the Warsaw ghetto to check for signs of typhus and other diseases.
    She took advantage of the trips to smuggle in medicine and supplies and to smuggle out children, who might be hidden in ambulances, or carried out in suitcases, or, in the case of some sedated infants, hidden inside a toolbox.
    She was captured and tortured by the Gestapo (1943).
    Despite having her feet and legs broken, she refused to name other members of the network or any of the children they had rescued.
    She was spared from the firing squad after the Zegota bribed a guard to release her but keep her name on the list of executed persons.
    In her old age, she was cared for by a nurse who she had rescued from the ghetto as an infant.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 15 Votes: 46.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 8 Votes: 12.50% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 13 Votes: 15.38% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 16 Votes: 6.25% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 23 Votes: 34.78% Annoying