You may have never heard the name of Irena Sendler (15 February 1910 –
5. COURAGE TO SERVE
You may have never heard the name of Irena Sendler (15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008), but hers is a name that deserves to live on and one that you should know. Born Irena Krzyżanowska, Irena Sendler was a social worker who secretly served in the Polish Underground in Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II.
While continuing her normal everyday work for the Department of Social Welfare in Warsaw, Sendler also worked under the cover-name "Jolanta" and was responsible for helping to smuggle a great many Jewish children out of the beleaguered Warsaw Ghetto. The ghetto was an area about the size of New York's Central Park that the Nazis established in 1940 and forced some 450,000 Jewish people to live cordoned off in this area. By getting hundreds of Jewish children out of the ghetto, then helping provide them with false identity documents and finding shelter for them with Polish families, orphanages, and other facilities such as Catholic convents, Sendler unquestionably saved the lives of those children and protected them from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.
Sendler was not alone in this activity, of course. She was one of dozens of Christian and humanitarian workers who participated in the effort to save the Jewish children, but what places Sendler apart from this group is the fact that she functioned as the "point woman" in the operation – single handedly getting the children out of the doomed ghetto.
The courage of this woman is evident in the incredible ways in which she performed the extractions. In addition to taking the children out of the guarded ghetto by means of sewers and other hidden routes, Sendler utilized methods such as hiding a child under a blanket in an ambulance or hiding a child in a suitcase, a sack, or other container of some kind. She made a hidden compartment in a wheeled toolbox that she took in and out of the ghetto, and very small children and babies were smuggled out in that. The rescue of very small children was especially dangerous as they often began to cry. Incredibly, Sendler trained a pet dog that accompanied her to bark in order to cover the sound whenever a hidden child began to cry.
Using covert methods like these, Sendler was able to rescue some 2,500 children from very likely death. But the Nazis became suspicious of her activities, and in 1943 she was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo. During the questioning she was tortured and beaten so badly
that both her legs and feet were fractured. Sendler's courage came into play once again, however, and she did not reveal the names of her contacts and fellow underground workers.
Nevertheless, someone had informed on her, and Sendler was sentenced to death. But in yet another amazing aspect of this story, the Polish resistance movement managed to bribe the individual assigned to execute her, and she was spirited away on the day of her scheduled execution. On the following day, the German occupation forces publicly proclaimed her execution and Irena Sendler, in hiding, had the satisfaction of reading the posters that were put up with the news that she had been shot.
Almost all the parents of the children that Sendler saved died at the Treblinka concentration camp, but due to her efforts those people knew, at least, that their children were safe. Not surprisingly, after the war, in 1946, Sendler was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit for her work in saving so many Jewish children; sometime later she was also awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest civilian honor. In 1965, Sendler was also recognized by the State of Israel as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations."
The good that Irena Sendler accomplished must always be seen in the light of the amazing courage that this woman displayed throughout hundreds of missions in which children were saved and in undergoing torture rather than betraying her fellow workers. While many at that time felt the Nazi treatment of Jews and others was wrong, far fewer had the courage to step in and serve – to actively do something about the problem.
Serving Others Often Needs Courage Irena Sendler's story is unique in many ways, but it is also true that those who serve others often find that it takes courage to do so. We need only think of firefighters and other first-responders, or of the doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers who go into areas where deadly illnesses are present, or who work with the sick and those needing help in times of crisis such as that caused by the Covid-19 virus or other diseases.
But courage is often equally needed to serve God and to help others in spiritual ways. This fact is highlighted in the words of God spoken by the prophet Haggai when the Jews who had returned from captivity in Babylon were afraid to serve in order to rebuild the Temple to God: "'But
now be strong, Zerubbabel,' declares the Lord. 'Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,' declares the Lord, 'and work. For I am with you,' declares the Lord Almighty" (Haggai 2:4). Being "strong" in these circumstances did not mean being physically strong enough for the work of building, but having the mental strength of courage to do the needed work despite opposition.
Sometimes the resistance against doing good may even come from seemingly religious people, and this can also require courage. Jesus often experienced this, but had the courage to heal and help those in need even when the religious authorities disapproved and tried to kill him for it (Mark 3:4-6).
Courage is needed no less in our own age by those who serve by carrying the word of God to areas where it is officially discouraged or forbidden, fighting against the evils of abortion, pornography, sex trafficking, and other social ills, as well as in lesser but still very real ways where speaking the truth is increasingly frowned upon and resisted by democratic societies that supposedly value freedom of speech.
Fortunately, as we will see repeatedly in this book, the courage needed to help others spiritually is not some kind of strength that we must work up. Spiritual courage is an attribute of the Spirit of God. That is why the book of Acts tells us that at the inception of the New Testament church, the disciples "were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly" (Acts 4:31 CSB). We will have the courage to serve the spiritual needs of others if the Spirit of God is in us and regularly stirred up, just as Paul told Timothy: "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:6-7).
The Spirit of God can give us the courage we need in even the most challenging situations. When Paul was imprisoned in Rome and speaking the gospel was becoming increasingly dangerous, he remarked how God nevertheless gave the courage needed. "Most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear" (Philippians 1:14 NASB). "Trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment" means the brethren were praying for God's help because of the dangers that existed – and they were thus being given the courage they needed. Just as God gives us his power when we are weak, and his love to deal with those who seem unlovable, so he gives us courage when we need it in order to serve.
Serving Is Sacrifice Ultimately, of course, even with God-given courage, we may still suffer for serving others. The truth is that service is often based on sacrifice, and it is probably true to say that we cannot serve others without giving up something of or for ourselves. But that is the calling we are given: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). In our own everyday lives most of us do not need to sacrifice to such an extent, but we should always ask for and use the courage to serve – even if it is simply to take on more than we might feel comfortable with or to give even more generously of our time.
The apostle Paul's farewell to the Christians in Ephesus reminds us that without the sacrifice of work it is difficult to truly serve: "You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak" (Acts 20:34-35).
But if we utilize the courage to serve, we will have the strength we need to help others. The two qualities of strength and courage cannot be separated, as 2 Samuel plainly shows: "Be strong, and let us show ourselves courageous for the sake of our people and for the cities of our God; and may the LORD do what is good in his sight" (2 Samuel 10:12 NASB). We utilize the strength of courage out of love and not for reward, of course, but 2 Chronicles 15:7 reminds us nonetheless to "be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded."