Sir, – Last Monday, Irena Sendler, one of the greatest rescuers of victims of the Holocaust, passed away. She epitomized the great courage of the thousands of women and men who risked their lives to save the persecuted.
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation recently managed to locate the only living relative of another great Polish Catholic heroine – Ms. Stanislawa (Stacha) Slawinska, who sheltered in her own home 10 Jews who had managed to flee the Warsaw Ghetto. Our foundation will honor her memory with special educational programs and has passed the relevant documentation to Yad Vashem so she can be granted the title of Righteous Among the Nations. This coincided with the visit to Israel of Polish president Lech Kaczynski.
We hope that the new relationship between the Polish and Jewish peoples will be shaped after the remarkable legacies of people like Sendler and Slawinska, to whom we owe eternal gratitude (”Pole who saved 2,500 from Warsaw Ghetto also saved their names,” May 14).
DANNY RAINER
Vice President
International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
Jerusalem
May 16, 2008
