On February 15, 1910, Irena Krzyzanowska was born in Warsaw, Poland. Irena studied Polish literature at Warsaw University, and eventually joined the Polish Socialist Party.

Then World War II broke out. It was 1940 and Germany had taken over. The Germans had begun shifting Warsaw’s population of 380,000 Jews to a separate Ghetto (聚居区). Irena worked in the Warsaw health department and was allowed to enter the Ghetto.

Irena was a member of Zegota (援助犹太人委员会), a secret organization set up by the Polish government. The goal of Zegota was to rescue Polish Jews. Irena’s job was to rescue as many children as she could.

Regardless of the danger it posed, Irena began aiding Jews in earnest (真挚地) in the early 1940s. She and her sympathetic co-workers created more than 3,000 false documents to help Jewish families, and that was just the beginning of the efforts.

Irena and her team began smuggling children out during these visits. They used various methods, such as hiding them in ambulances, leading them through sewer pipes or underground passages, even stuffing them into suitcases or boxes that they’d then take through the courtyard to the non-Jewish area.

Irena was helped by a network of over 30 volunteers, most of whom were women. Their hope was to get the children back to their families once the war was won. Irena and her helpers noted the names of the children on cigarette papers and sealed them in glass bottles. Then they buried the bottles in a friend’s garden for safekeeping. When the war was done, the bottles were dug up and the lists handed to Jewish representatives. Sadly, reuniting the children with their parents proved mostly impossible, as almost all had been killed in concentration camps.