Saturday, May 17, 2008
Who is Irena Sendler?
Irena Sendler is one of the nominees who did not get the Nobel Peace Prize won by Al Gore. Did the Nobel committee choose wisely?
9 Comments:
By 
SR, at
Sat May 17, 12:05:00 PM:
You can keep the money, Al, but at least lay the citation on her grave.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Sat May 17, 12:48:00 PM:
When I read stories like this I often wonder to myself what I would have done in similar circumstances.
Help? Be a coward and go along?
I think - I hope - I would have tried to do something, however small to save someone, at least one person.
On the other hand, my late grandmother was a remarkable women. Compassionate, caring, selfless. But she grew up and lived in the south (Louisiana) during Jim Crow and while she was helpful (giving food, shelter) to black Americans, she never stood up to the horrors of segregation.
Never openly or secretly challenged it.
I'm not sure...
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat May 17, 01:18:00 PM:
"horrors of segregation"
One one level, it was normal. It's how society worked for nigh 100 years and personal disagreement doesn't necessarily equate activism.
On another, blacks in the segregated south and Jews and Poles under Nazi rule were *completely* different animals. I imagine that if there were organized, government sanctioned massacres of blacks in Louisiana then people like your grandmother would have intervened then, too.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Sat May 17, 01:24:00 PM:
One one level, it was normal
That's the point. The banality of evil (as Arendt called it). People come to accept it, it's the world they live in, the life they accept.
(Obviously the Holocaust was worse than segregation; but Jim Crow was more than just separate dining rooms as I'm sure you know)
By 
, at
Sat May 17, 02:31:00 PM:
The Nobel Committee chose to make a political statemtent, and no, they did not choose wisely. And it would appear they passed over her for a number of years, unless for some reason she just wasn't nominated.
By , at
Sat May 17, 06:05:00 PM:
There are so many Poles who did so much to help during awful times, just like Irena Sendlerowa... but their stories are not known by a Western audience...
Another great -and unassuming- hero is Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, who was much younger than Irena at the time of her self-less work, and who co-founded Zegota, the organization that Irena worked with to save all those Jewish children. I wrote a little bit about him here http://www.dillonhillas.com/dumspirospero/poland/wladyslaw-bartoszewski-member-of-the-decent-race/
I've also wondered what I would have done under similar circumstances... I'd like to think that I would have been brave and righteous. But that's easy to think of when we are not faced with sheer terror.
The stories of these incredible giants once would have been written in boys’ and girls’ magazines.
What cheers me up, despite the lack of knowledge about these wonderful examples of the human race, is that at least in Irena's case, the youngsters of the US were the ones who brought her story to everybody's attention, including the Polish Government!
By the way, this is a very perspicacious blog.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Sat May 17, 06:36:00 PM:
Barbara:
I'd like to think that I would have been brave and righteous. But that's easy to think of when we are not faced with sheer terror.
Great post.
Not only the terror that you would be shot, tortured or arrested; but the terror that your entire family would be hurt - slaughtered - if you were caught.
Hurt me? Okay, I guess.
Hurt my loved ones? Never.
All of this is too horrible to contemplate for long stretches.
By , at
Sat May 17, 07:22:00 PM:
To SMGalbraith:
I live, temporarily, in Poland. There are still very raw wounds dating back to World War II, especially relating to Polish-Jewish relations.
Amazingly, Irena Sendlerowa's story was recognized by Israel a long time ago (1965?). The rest of us were clueless, and, for the most part, adhering to the stereotype that all Poles were anti-Semitic.
When you live in Poland you cannot escape asking yourself what would you have done during those miserable years...(World War II). Every time I've visited Auschwitz I ask myself the same question.
As you well put it, placing yourself at risk is one thing...but placing your entire family and neighbors? How many remember that the German Nazis had a quota: for 1 German killed, more than 10 Poles were to die. Every corner of my neighborhood has a plaque remembering those victims. These victims would have been grand-parents or parents today...
Yet, these "giants", as I call them, did so. How come? They were ordinary individuals with extraordinary moral strength. What made them do what they did?
I've talked to a few, and they all say the same thing: because... it was the right thing to do!!!!
I'm humbled by these stories. The protagonists are dying. Few of us know anything about them (a combination of language problems and history). Their stories should be heard...read...by our children and grand-children.
By davod, at
Sun May 18, 06:31:00 AM:
The reason we get such political selections is because the Peace Prize is selected by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.
" Who selects the Nobel Laureates?. In his last will and testament, Alfred Nobel specifically designated the institutions responsible for the prizes he wished to be established: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry, Karolinska Institute for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Swedish Academy for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and a Committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting) for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economics in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was given the task to select the Economics Prize Laureates starting in 1969."
