Google Doodle Why Irena Sendler is celebrated as a heroine in Germany

Today Irena Sendlerowa would have been 110 years old. The Polish social worker managed to save the lives of many Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War. For this reason, Google honors Irena Sendlerowa on her birthday with a Google Doodle.

Today's Google Doodle shows Irena Sendlerowa in front of a large apple tree and was inspired by the fact that Irena buried the names of the rescued children in mason jars under an apple tree in her garden to enable them to be brought together with the children's parents later.

Irena Sendlerowa in the Google Doodle - she saved 2500 children

Irena Sendlerowa was born in Warsaw on February 15, 1910. Even before the war started, she worked in various departments in the social welfare office in Warsaw. After the Warsaw Ghetto was declared a restricted area, she managed to smuggle a total of around 2500 children out of the ghetto with the help of false official ID cards for herself and her helpers and falsified papers for the children. These children were then placed with Polish families, in monasteries and orphanages.

After the help from the social welfare office was no longer possible, Irena worked with the underground organization Zegota in order to continue to provide financial support to the children.

She lived underground until the end of the war

Irena Sendlerowa was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and was supposed to reveal the names and hiding places of the children, which she did not do. She was sentenced to death, but was eventually bought out. Until the end of the war, she lived underground under false identity.

In 2003 she was awarded the highest award in Poland, the "White Eagle", in 2013 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.