As the world marks liberation of the Nazi concentration camps… LORD ASHCROFT recalls the forgotten heroine of the Holocaust who smuggled 2,500 ghetto children to safety in coffins, suitcases… and even a toolbox
- Irena is all but forgotten despite the fact that she saved around 2,500 children
- She died in 2008 with brief tributes to the bravery of ‘The Angel of Warsaw’
By Lord Ashcroft For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 17:00 EST, 21 January 2023 | Updated: 17:00 EST, 21 January 2023
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The pretty, dark-haired young woman in a nurse’s uniform felt her heart thump inside her chest as she presented her identity papers to the Nazi soldiers guarding one of the few entrances to the Warsaw Ghetto.
It was the summer of 1942 and the truth about the Germans’ brutal genocide of the Jews was becoming horrifyingly clear. The knot in her stomach shifted slightly as the guard gruffly waved her inside. Agonisingly, she knew that if the truth of her secret mission was revealed, she would be tortured by the ruthless, sadistic SS and then shot.
She sighed with relief, but knew an even more heart-rending task lay inside the walls of the ghetto, where up to 500,000 Polish Jews had been corralled ten-to-a-room in a warren of buildings and streets in an area little larger than a square mile. There, the stench of death and disease was appalling. Thousands of half-starved people wandered around with just rags to protect them from the bitter cold.
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On the anniversary of the Nazi concentration camp’s liberation, we would all take the time to read and reflect upon this human tragedy. And the heroes and heroines, who risked everything, to save babies. It’s hard to imagine having that much physical courage. Not sure if I could do it; hope I would but until you have to act will you really know.
All those, who deny that the Holocaust happened, must be repudiated and reviled as mentally ill.
I can’t imagine their mental workings that can ignore all the evidence and personal testimony.
Argh!
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Reinke Faces Life 