How 9 Ordinary People Became Heroes During The Holocaust — And Risked Everything To Save Jewish Lives

Published September 1, 2021
Updated March 12, 2024

Irena Sendler: The Polish Humanitarian Who Helped Save 2,500 Children

Irena Sendler

Wikimedia CommonsIrena Sendler helped rescue thousands of Jewish children from German-occupied Poland.

Irena Sendler learned this life lesson from her father: “When someone is drowning, you don’t ask if they can swim, you just jump in and help.”

That’s exactly what Sendler did after the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939. As an employee at the Polish Social Welfare Department, Sendler and some colleagues falsified thousands of documents to help Polish Jews.

But Sendler wanted to do more. Shortly after the German invasion, the Nazis had crammed nearly half a million Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto, where many suffered from starvation. To help, Sendler quietly signed up for the Polish resistance movement, joining an underground group called Zegota.

Slowly, Sendler began to enter the ghetto under the guise of checking for typhus. While there, she brought food, medicine, and clothing to the desperate people inside. But Sendler did not leave the ghetto empty-handed. Gradually, she began taking babies and small children out.

Children In The Warsaw Ghetto

Wikimedia CommonsYoung children huddling together for warmth in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Smuggling the children out of the ghetto in suitcases, packages, and even coffins, Sendler transported them away to safety. Some were sent to live with friends of Zegota. Others were sent to Christian Polish families or orphanages and given Christian names. But Sendler kept track of them all — determined to one day return them to their families if at all possible.

When the Nazis finally caught up to her, Sendler refused to reveal the identities of her comrades, or any of the children she helped save. Though the Nazis brutally tortured her, Sendler remained silent.

She even survived a death sentence — thanks to a last-minute bribe from Zegota. Amazingly, even though her work had almost cost her her life, Sendler returned to her position with Zegota under a different name.

Thanks to her bravery, some 2,500 Jewish children escaped the Holocaust. But like other heroes on this list, Sendler refused to call herself such.

“The term ‘hero’ irritates me greatly,” Sendler later said, though Israel honored her as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1965. “The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little.”

author
Kaleena Fraga
author
A senior staff writer for All That's Interesting since 2021 and co-host of the History Uncovered Podcast, Kaleena Fraga graduated with a dual degree in American History and French Language and Literature from Oberlin College. She previously ran the presidential history blog History First, and has had work published in The Washington Post, Gastro Obscura, and elsewhere. She has published more than 1,200 pieces on topics including history and archaeology. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
Based in Brooklyn, New York, John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of expertise include modern American history and the ancient Near East. In an editing career spanning 17 years, he previously served as managing editor of Elmore Magazine in New York City for seven years.
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Fraga, Kaleena. "How 9 Ordinary People Became Heroes During The Holocaust — And Risked Everything To Save Jewish Lives." AllThatsInteresting.com, September 1, 2021, https://allthatsinteresting.com/holocaust-heroes. Accessed August 2, 2025.