Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I had completely forgotten

When that gasbag and failed politician Al Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for a documentary that even he admitted was based on false premises (ah but you have to shock people!) one of the other candidates was Irena Sendler, a Polish Roman Catholic nurse who had saved around 2,500 Jewish children and infants, placing them with Catholic families. The latter then courageously brought them up as their own.

Irena Sendler was arrested and badly tortured by the Gestapo though her organization managed to save her from being executed. Subsequently, she lived in hiding but is said to have gone on helping Jewish children. After the war she tried to reunite some of the children with their families most of whom had been exterminated.

Needless to say she was then persecuted by the Polish Communist government for being close to the Home Army, whose members were put on show trial, and to the "bourgeois" Polish government in exile that had been betrayed by the Western allies.

Once again she was imprisoned and tortured, miscarrying her second child. Later her children were not allowed to study at Polish universities and it was not till 1983 that she was allowed abroad to receive her Israeli award.

As this entry on American Thinker tells us, the lady died last May and she has now been honoured by a film on Hallmark Channel. In Israel she has been recognized as one of the Righteous of All Nations and awarded a Commander's Cross by the Israeli Institute.

She received a personal message from the Pope in 2003 and was, belatedly, honoured by the Polish government. A great lady but, as far as the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is concerned, far inferior to the man who will do anything to promote himself into a position of power and influence.

Marc Sheppard on American Thinker speculates that the prize was agreed on behind the scenes long before the official discussion. That is entirely possible.

However, I can't help feeling that Ms Sendler was better off not receiving that prize, especially when one remembers who has been "honoured" with it in the past. It would have besmirched her fine life.

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