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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2017 - 2018
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 11, 2017 09:35 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Susan C. Helm |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | House Resolution - Designating February 15, 2018, as “Irena Sendler Day” in Pennsylvania |
| In the near future, I intend to introduce a resolution designating February 15, 2018, as “Irena Sendler Day” in Pennsylvania. The purpose of this resolution is to heighten the awareness about Ms. Sendler, and her helpers bravely went about their task of saving as many children as possible from the Nazi death camps. Ms. Sendler, living in Warsaw, Poland during WWII, a Catholic woman, helped save over 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi death camps. She established a network that helped spirit these children out of Warsaw to other families, who hid them until the war’s end. She would write each child’s name on a piece of tissue paper, place the paper in a jar and bury it in a vacant lot (under an apple tree, which still grows in Poland) hoping to retrieve it after the war and eventually reunite the children with their parents. Hence, her book is named “Life in a Jar.” Unfortunately, most of the children’s parents were deported and murdered at the Treblinka death camp. Ms. Sendler was arrested on October 20, 1943, and put in the Pawiak prison where she was tortured, including having her legs and feet fractured. Although sentenced to death, Ms. Sendler managed to escape the prison and lived in hiding for the remainder of the war. After the war, even though she had saved so many lives, Ms. Sendler was always haunted by the lives she was unable to save. Please join me in co-sponsoring this Resolution in recognition of Ms. Sendler’s bravery and humanitarian efforts. |
Introduced as HR632