Irena's Children

The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto

By: Tilar J. Mazzeo

Narrated by: Amanda Carlin

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Widow Clicquot comes an extraordinary and gripping true account of Irena Sendler - the "female Oskar Schindler" - who took staggering risks to save 2,500 children from death and deportation in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.

In 1942 one young social worker, Irena Sendler, was granted access to the Warsaw Ghetto as a public health specialist. While she was there, she began to understand the fate that awaited the Jewish families who were unable to leave. Soon she reached out to the trapped families, going from door to door and asking them to trust her with their young children. She started smuggling children out of the walled district, convincing her friends and neighbors to hide them. Driven to extreme measures, and with the help of a network of local tradesmen, ghetto residents, and her star-crossed lover in the Jewish resistance, Irena ultimately smuggled thousands of children past the Nazis. She made dangerous trips through the city's sewers, hid children in coffins, snuck them under overcoats at checkpoints, and slipped them through secret passages in abandoned buildings.

But Irena did something even more astonishing at immense personal risk: She kept a secret list buried in bottles under an old apple tree in a friend's back garden. On it were the names and true identities of these Jewish children, recorded so their families could find them after the war. She could not know that more than 90 percent of their families would perish.

In Irena's Children, Tilar Mazzeo shares the incredible story of this courageous and brave woman who risked her life to save innocent children from the Holocaust - a truly heroic tale of survival, resilience, and redemption.

©2016 Tilar J. Mazzeo (P)2016 Simon & Schuster

Female Schindler

I became interested in learning more about the Warsaw Ghetto after reading Leon Uris’s book “Milo 18”. Mazzeo’s book is non-fiction and is fascinating.

This is a story of World War II, the Warsaw ghetto and the Holocaust. Mazzeo tells the story of the life of Irena Sendlerowa (Sender). The author covers her story from childhood to death but most of the story covers the war years.

In 1939 Irena Sender is a social worker in Warsaw. As the Germans take control they deprive the Polish Jews of everything and then confine 400,000 of them to one area of Warsaw. The Jews are slowly being sent to Treblinka and Auschwitz. Irena, as a social worker, has a pass that allows her to go most anywhere including in and out of the ghetto. She begins smuggling out children with the help of her fellow social workers, medical personnel and the resistance. Many where placed in homes of the Catholic Poles and raised as their own children. She kept a list of the placements in hopes of reuniting families at the end of the war, not realizing most families would perish in the camps. Irena is captured and tortured but never gives away her secrets.

The book is well written and impeccably researched. The author combed through archives and interviews survivors. The story was lost during the Soviet occupation of Poland after the German’s withdrew near the end of WWII. This occupation by the Soviets only created more difficulties in researching the story. Mazzeo tells a magnificent story of courage, resilience and heroism. If you are interested in WWII, you will learn more from this story. I was most impressed by this magnificent story.

Amanda Carlin does a good job narrating the story. Carlin is a stage, film and television actress. She also narrates audiobooks.

Beautiful story

Very sad we in this world let this happen ,I am happy their were people that cared. The book was very good. I had to listen to it twice. Let us not it happens again.

Believing in what you do for all

What an incredible story. It is sad, happy, joyful, tragic. It is crazy that this story has so much more to it that we will never know.

incredible.

I am so moved, Irena and her gr8 iends were beautiful people. doing what ever they could to help. I loved this book.

A remarkable account of the courageous people of Warsaw in WWII

Although my family left Poland prior to WWII, I have sought reading material about it's history and can say that this account has provided me with rich details. I highly recommend this true story of the brave souls both Jewish and Catholic who fought to save thousands of children and adults.

I learned more about WWII in Poland.

I was drawn in to this nonfiction work as if it were a novel. But it is not, and the lives it describes and narrates are valuable, courageous, meaningful, and appallingly cruel (Gestapo).

What a heartfelt story

The narrator, Amanda Carlin, really made the events in the story come to life. I started reading this book before stumbling upon the audiobook. It was much easier to put the images in my head and really see the tragic events unfold in Warsaw thanks to the narrator. To read about such selfless people that only focused on children was an incredible experience.

Bravery and Selfless

This was a great book and very well read. A must book to add to your list.

Devastating and yet inspiring

So many Polish people risked their lives to help others during the Holocaust. Irena’s story was new to me. At times the book was very hard to listen to because of the evil inflicted by both the Nazis and that polish citizens.

Another incredible Holocaust story

I have recently been on a WWII-Holocaust phase in my reading choices and this is yet another story of people willing to risk their lives for others. Irena often said she wasn't a hero and that many, many people helped her save Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto. Still she had amazing strength and committment to save some 2500 children. It's an awe-inspiring story if you like this genre.