Top Honours for a Real-Life Heroine
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President Aleksander Kwasniewski bestowed Poland's highest distinction, the Order of the White Eagle, on 93-yearold Irena Sandler, who saved some 2,500 Jewish children from death in German death camps in World War Two. Sandler received her award at an old-age home in Warsaw, where she now lives.
"It's an honour to be able to give the Order of the White Eagle to someone, who life saved human lives while endangering her own," Kwasniewski said during the ceremony on Monday. "Thanks to people like this we can believe that good can overcome evil."
During the war, Sandler was in charge of children's affairs at the underground Zegota group, formed by the Polish underground to help Jews survive the Holocaust. Working as a social worker, she sneaked Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and placed them with Polish families and institutions. She buried a list of their real and assumed names in a jar. The list later made it possible to establish the children's true identities and, in some cases, to reunite them with their families.
For her efforts, she has also received the "Righteous Among the Nations of the World" medal from Israel's Yad Vashem Institute. Polish Holocaust survivors have said they want to nominate her for the Nobel Peace Prize.
SIMON CYGIELSKI