Grażyna Ferenc won this year’s Irena Sendler Award
Ferenc organizes and takes part in numerous projects, such as documentaries devoted to the Holocaust, meetings of students with witnesses of memory and guided tours of memory sites. This year’s candidate is also a guide of the National Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.
“Irena Sendler taught us that people cannot be divided into white and black, followers of one religion or another, but into good and evil. As long as this consciousness won’t be present in our society, I see a place and a part for myself in this world” – said the winner.
The award was presented at the Palace of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Krzysztof Czyżewski – chairman of the Pogranicze Foundation – and Elżbieta Ficowska, one of the children rescued by Irena Sendler.
The Irena Sendler Award “For saving the world” is presented by the Association of the “Children of the Holocaust” and the Center for Citizenship Educaton. It is given to teachers who teach about Jewish history and culture in a special way and work for their schools and communities. This year was held the 5th awarding ceremony.
The patron of the award Irena Sendler, Righteous Among the Nations, activist of the underground Council to Aid Jews “Żegota”, working in the Welfare Assistance Department of the Warsaw Administration, saved together with her collaborators 2,500 children during the Second World War.
The children she helped rescue were brought out from the Warsaw ghetto onto the so-called Aryan Side. They received false papers and were placed in Polish orders, orphanages and families.
In 1965 Irena Sendler was awarded with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations for rescuing Jews during the Second World War. In 2007 the Righteous was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She passed away on May 12, 2008 in Warsaw, at the age of 98.
More about Irena Sendler on the portal “Polish Righteous”.
