Hello All, Grace and Peace be to you from our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
I enjoy studying History. As a young person, I strongly disliked it, but as I have grown older, I have come to enjoy studying it all. One era that has grabbed my attention is the Holocaust, and being here in Europe has given me an opportunity to see these places up close. It has kind of become personal to me. So, when I came across this story I knew I had to post it.
I see Irena as a true hero, and I know that all the children who lived because of her would agree.
When Hitler and his Nazis built the Warsaw Ghetto and herded 500,000 Polish Jews behind its walls to await liquidation, many Polish gentiles turned their backs or applauded. Not Irena Sendler. An unfamiliar name to most people, but this remarkable woman defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. As a health worker, she sneaked the children out between 1942 and 1943to safe hiding places and found non-Jewish families to adopt them.
Her achievement went largely unnoticed for many years. Then the story was uncovered by four young students at Uniontown High School, in Kansas, who were the winners of the 2000 Kansas state National History Day competition by writing a play Life in a Jar about the heroic actions of Irena Sendler. The girls - Elizabeth Cambers, Megan Stewart, Sabrina Coons and Janice Underwood - have since gained international recognition, along with their teacher, Norman Conard. The presentation, seen in many venues in the United States and popularized by National Public Radio, C-SPAN and CBS, has brought Irena Sendler's story to a wider public.
The students continue their prize-winning dramatic presentation Life in a Jar.
Irena Sendler was born in 1910 in Otwock, a town some 15 miles southeast of Warsaw. She was greatly influenced by her father who was one of the first Polish Socialists. As a doctor his patients were mostly poor Jews.
In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and the brutality of the Nazis accelerated with murder, violence and terror.
At the time, Irena was a Senior Administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department, which operated the canteens in every district of the city. Previously, the canteens provided meals, financial aid, and other services for orphans, the elderly, the poor and the destitute. Now, through Irena, the canteens also provided clothing, medicine and money for the Jews. They were registered under fictitious Christian names, and to prevent inspections, the Jewish families were reported as being afflicted with such highly infectious diseases as typhus and tuberculosis.
But in 1942, the Nazis herded hundreds of thousands of Jews into a 16-block area that came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto. The Ghetto was sealed and the Jewish families ended up behind its walls, only to await certain death.
Irena Sendler was so appalled by the conditions that she joined Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, organized by the Polish underground resistance movement, as one of its first recruits and directed the efforts to rescue Jewish children.
To be able to enter the Ghetto legally, Irena managed to be issued a pass from Warsaws Epidemic Control Department and she visited the Ghetto daily, reestablished contacts and brought food, medicines and clothing. But 5,000 people were dying a month from starvation and disease in the Ghetto, and she decided to help the Jewish children to get out.
For Irena Sendler, a young mother herself, persuading parents to part with their children was in itself a horrendous task. Finding families willing to shelter the children, and thereby willing to risk their life if the Nazis ever found out, was also not easy.
Irena Sendler, who wore a star armband as a sign of her solidarity to Jews, began smuggling children out in an ambulance. She recruited at least one person from each of the ten centers of the Social Welfare Department.
With their help, she issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures. Irena Sendler successfully smuggled almost 2,500 Jewish children to safety and gave them temporary new identities.
Some children were taken out in gunnysacks or body bags. Some were buried inside loads of goods. A mechanic took a baby out in his toolbox. Some kids were carried out in potato sacks, others were placed in coffins, some entered a church in the Ghetto which had two entrances. One entrance opened into the Ghetto, the other opened into the Aryan side of Warsaw. They entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians. "Can you guarantee they will live?" Irena later recalled the distraught parents asking. But she could only guarantee they would die if they stayed. "In my dreams," she said, "I still hear the cries when they left their parents."
Irena Sendler accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. "I sent most of the children to religious establishments," she recalled. "I knew I could count on the Sisters." Irena also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: "No one ever refused to take a child from me," she said.
The children were given false identities and placed in homes, orphanages and convents. Irena Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the children's original names and their new identities. She kept the only record of their true identities in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's back yard, across the street from German barracks, hoping she could someday dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past.
In all, the jars contained the names of 2,500 children ...
But the Nazis became aware of Irena's activities, and on October 20, 1943 she was arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, who broke her feet and legs. She ended up in the Pawiak Prison, but no one could break her spirit. Though she was the only one who knew the names and addresses of the families sheltering the Jewish children, she withstood the torture, refusing to betray either her associates or any of the Jewish children in hiding.
Sentenced to death, Irena was saved at the last minute when Zegota members bribed one of the Germans to halt the execution. She escaped from prison but for the rest of the war she was pursued by the Gestapo.
After the war she dug up the jars and used the notes to track down the 2,500 children she placed with adoptive families and to reunite them with relatives scattered across Europe. But most lost their families during the Holocaust in Nazi death camps.
The children had known her only by her code name Jolanta. But years later, after she was honored for her wartime work, her picture appeared in a newspaper. "A man, a painter, telephoned me," said Sendler, "`I remember your face,' he said. `It was you who took me out of the ghetto.' I had many calls like that!"
Irena Sendler did not think of herself as a hero. She claimed no credit for her actions. "I could have done more," she said. "This regret will follow me to my death."
She has been honored by international Jewish organizations - in 1965 she accorded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem organization in Jerusalem and in 1991 she was made an honorary citizen of Israel.
Irena Sendler was awarded Poland's highest distinction, the Order of White Eagle in Warsaw Monday Nov. 10, 2003.
This lovely, courageous woman was one of the most dedicated and active workers in aiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Her courage enabled not only the survival of 2,500 Jewish children but also of the generations of their descendants.
Sendler with some children she saved, Warsaw, 2005
In 2007 considerable publicity accompanied Sendler's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. While failed nominations for the award have not been officially announced by the Nobel organization for 50 years, the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, reported in 2007 that Irena Sendler's nominator had made the nomination public. Regardless of its legitimacy, talk of the nomination focused a spotlight on Sendler and her wartime achievements. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.
She passed away on May 12, 2008, at the age of 98.
Hello All, Grace and Peace be to you from our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
There are so many religions in the world today, but there is only ONE WAY to HEAVEN. That is through JESUS CHRIST...The one true living GOD! 
Hello All, Grace and Peace be to you from our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
I am excited today because my brother in CHRIST, Chuck, from Secondary Roads, has given me the "Most Inspirational Blog Award"! Thank you brother! I am speechless, (although, my friends would say that even when I am speechless, I always have something to say...LOL!) I have the gift of gab...I do not think it is a spirtual gift, but a gift nonetheless. LOL!!!
As I have received, I shall give away. I will give it to five other blogs that have inspired me. Though I have many favorites, I could only choose five, and the winners are...
Martha-Fly Away Birdie
Brad-Sound of a Soft Breath
Rita-Following 31
Yeo Kee Hui-Bible Examples
Scott-Just A Thought
Check out these blogs and be blessed!
Hello All, Grace and Peace be to you from JESUS CHRIST our LORD and SAVIOR.
I found this great devotion from a "Our Daily Bread" book. It was a reminder to me, and I believe we all need to be reminded of this truth. I am going to type verbatim from the book. GOD bless you all! Happy Sunday!
It was 40 years ago or more that I observed a friend of mine showing great affection for someone I considered unworthy of love. I thought my friend was being taken in, and I was afraid he would be disillusioned and saddened in the end.
When I expressed my concern, he replied, "When I stand before my LORD, I hope HE will say of me that I've loved too many, rather than too few." I've never forgotten his words.
Paul insists that "[Love] believes all things" (1Corinthians 13:7). Love "believes" in people. It can see the potential in them. It believes that GOD can take the most unattractive and unworthy individual and turn that person into a masterpiece of beauty and grace. If love errs, it must err in the way of trustfulness and hopefulness.
Certainly we must be aware of danger when we see it coming, and become "as wise as serpents" (Matthew 10:16). Tough love may be the best response to irresponsible and foolish people, but we can be too guarded, too wary and distrustful.
It doesn't do us any real harm to be hoodwinked and defrauded (Matthew 5:38-48). It's better to believe in someone and have your heart broken than to have no heart at all. British poet Alfred Tennyson wrote, "'Tis better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all."
~David Roper~ Our Daily Bread
Lord,
Help us to believe in people and all that in them YOU can do, so we can say we've loved too many, ranther than too few.
Love looks beyond what people are to what they can become.
Hello All, Grace and Peace be to you from our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
Our Father Who Art In Heaven.
Yes?
Don't interrupt me. I'm praying..
But -- you called ME!
Called you?
No, I didn't call you.
I'm praying.
Our Father who art in Heaven.
There -- you did it again!
Did what?
Called ME.You said,
"Our Father who art in Heaven"
Well, here I am..What's on your mind?
But I didn't mean anything by it.
I was, you know, just saying my prayers for the day.
I always say the Lord's Prayer.
It makes me feel good,
kind of like fulfilling a duty.
Well, all right.
Go on.
Okay, Hallowed be thy name .
Hold it right there.What do you mean by that?
By what?
By "Hallowed be thy name"?
It means, it means . . good grief,
I don't know what it means.
How in the world should I know?
It's just a part of the prayer.
By the way, what does it mean?
It means to honor greatly, to set apart as HOLY.
Hey, that makes sense..
I never thought about what 'hallowed' meant before.
Thanks.
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in Heaven.
Do you really mean that?
Sure, why not?
What are you doing about it?
Doing? Why, nothing, I guess.
I just think it would be kind of neat if you got
control, of everything down here like you have up
there. We're kinda in a mess down here you know.
Yes, I know;but, have I got control of you?
Well, I go to church.
That isn't what I asked you.
What about your bad temper?
You've really got a problem there, you know.
And then there's the way you spend
your money -- all on yourself.
And what about the kind of books you read ?
Now hold on just a minute!
Stop picking on me!
I'm just as good as some of the rest
of those People at church!
Excuse ME..
I thought you were praying
for MY will to be done.
If that is to happen,
it will have to start with the ones
who are praying for it.
Like you -- for example ..
Oh, all right. I guess I do have some hang-ups.
Now that you mention it,
I could probably name some others.
So could I.
I haven't thought about it very much until now,
but I really would like to cut out some of those things.
I would like to, you know, be really free.
Good. Now we're getting somewhere.
We'll work together -- You and ME.
I'm proud of You.
Look, LORD, if you don't mind,
I need to finish up here.
This is taking a lot longer than it usually does.
Give us this day, our daily bread.
You need to cut out some of the bread..
You've been overindulging.
Hey, wait a minute! What is this?
Here I was doing my religious duty,
and all of a sudden you break in
and remind me of all my hang-ups.
Praying is a dangerous thing.
You just might get what you ask for.
Remember, you called ME -- and here I am.
It's too late to stop now.
Keep praying. ( pause . . )
Well, go on.
I'm scared to.
Scared? Of what?
I know what you'll say.
Try ME.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
What about Ann?
See? I knew it!
I knew you would bring her up!
Why, Lord, she's told lies about me, spread stories.
She never paid back the money she owes me.
I've sworn to get even with her!
But -- your prayer --
What about your prayer?
I didn't -- mean it..
Well, at least you're honest.
But, it's quite a load carrying around all that
bitterness and resentment isn't it?
Yes, but I'll feel better as soon as I get even with her.
Boy, have I got some plans for her.
She'll wish she had never been born.
No, you won't feel any better.
You'll feel worse.
Revenge isn't sweet.
You know how unhappy you are --
Well, I can change that.
You can? How?
Forgive Ann.
Then, I'll forgive you;
And the hate and the sin,
will be Ann's problem -- not yours.
You will have settled the problem
as far as you are concerned.
Oh, you know, you're right.
You always are.
And more than I want revenge,
I want to be right with You . . (sigh).
All right, all right . .
I forgive her.
There now!
Wonderful!
How do you feel?
Hmmmm. Well, not bad.
Not bad at all!
In fact, I feel pretty great!
You know, I don't think I'll go to bed uptight tonight.
I haven't been getting much rest, you know.
Yeah, I know.
But, you're not through with your prayer, are you?
Go on.
Oh, all right.And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Good! Good! I'll do that.
Just don't put yourself in a place
where you can be tempted.
What do you mean by that?
You know what I mean.
Yeah. I know.
Okay..
Go ahead. Finish your prayer.
For Thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory forever.
Amen.
Do you know what would bring me glory?
What would really make me happy?
No, but I'd like to know.
I want to please you now.
I've really made a mess of things.
I want to truly follow you..
I can see now how great that would be.
So, tell me . . .How do I make you happy?
YOU just did.
Hello All, Grace and Peace be to you all from our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
Every time I am asked to pray, I think of the old deacon who always prayed, 'Lord, prop us up on our leanin' side.' After hearing him pray that prayer many times, someone asked him why he prayed that prayer so fervently.
He answered, 'Well sir, you see, it's like this... I got an old barn out back. It's been there a long time; it's withstood a lot of weather; it's gone through a lot of storms, and it's stood for many years.
It's still standing. But one day I noticed it was leaning to one side a bit.
So I went and got some pine poles and propped it up on its leaning side so it wouldn't fall.
Then I got to thinking about that and how much I was like that old barn. I've been around a long time.
I've withstood a lot of life's storms. I've withstood a lot of bad weather in life, I've withstood a lot of hard times, and I'm still standing too. But I find myself leaning to one side from time to time, so I like to ask the Lord to prop us up on our leaning side, 'cause I figure a lot of us get to leaning at times.
Sometimes we get to leaning toward anger, leaning toward bitterness, leaning toward hatred, leaning toward cussing, leaning toward a lot of things that we shouldn't. So we need to pray, 'Lord, prop us up on our leaning side, so we will stand straight and tall again, to glorify the Lord.''
~Author Unknown~
Hello All, Grace and Peace be to you from our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST,
May you always keep your KING on the board!! GOD bless you all! 
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