Teresa Tucholska-Körner, one of Irena Sendler’s „children”, has passed away

Teresa Tucholska-Körner was born in Cegłów in the Mazowsze province as Chaja Estera Sztajn. Her parents Aron and Fajge had a shop and a bicarbonate of soda factory in Cegłów. They had two daughters: Chaja Esterka and Jachewet, who was a few years younger. The father and sister of Esterka were murdered, when she was 12 years old. Together with her mother she went to Warsaw. When the woman was denounced and killed, Esterka was helped by Julian Grobelny, a friend of her family, the first president of the Council to Aid Jews “Żegota”. He could not take care of the girl for safety reasons, so he entrusted this task to Irena Sendler.

The future Righteous Among the Nations obtained for her a false birth certificate and from now on her name was Teresa Tucholska. Irena Sendler placed the girl in the apartment of Stanisław Papuziński and Zofia Wędrychowska. Apart from the four children of Wędrychowska, three other Jewish children were already living there. When the Gestapo entered the apartment in the Warsaw Ochota district, Teresa lead a few of the children to the apartment of some friends of Wędrychowska, who lived on Krucza Street. Afterwards Irena Sendler placed her in a settlement near Garwolin and in autumn 1944 transferred the girl to an orphanage located in Okęcie. Zofia Wędrychowska was executed in the Pawiak prison on April 26th, 1944.

After the war Irena Sendler took care of Teresa, who started living with her and her husband. When Sendler’s children were born, Teresa moved to the boarding house for Jewish children on Jagiellońska Street. In 1956 she graduated in dentistry from the Medical Academy in Warsaw. In 1957 she got married and left with her husband to Israel. She had two sons and worked as a dentist until she retired.

Irena Sendler, Righteous Among the Nations, activist of the underground Council to Aid Jews “Żegota”, saved 2,500 children during the Second World War. Among them were, apart from Teresa Tucholska-Körner: Elżbieta Ficowska, Michał Głowiński, Irena Wojdowska, Piotr (Zysman) Zettinger and Katarzyna Meloch. Irena Sendler passed away on May 12, 2008 in Warsaw, at the age of 98.