Hero-Wonder Woman

Princess Diana is a Wonder Woman. She rescues Major Steve Trevor when he crashes near Paradise Island, home to Diana and the other Amazon women.

She is horrified to learn about the Nazis and their dastardly ways. Diana decides she must help defeat this evil.

Diana accompanies the unconscious Major back to civilization. She assumes the identity of Yeoman Diana Prince.

She does not come empty handed. Every hero needs his/her "tools of the trade." Diana brings a belt that gives her incredible strength; a lasso that compels those it surrounds to tell the truth; bracelets that defy bullets; a tiara that can be thrown as a returnable weapon; and an invisible airplane.

Diana is on a mission. She will bring down the Nazis! She cannot be stopped!

 

I  want to introduce you to a real life Wonder Woman.  Her name was Irena Sendler.  She is responsible for saving 2500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Irena's aid came only from her courage and a few friends.  

 

As an adult,  Irena was a Senior Administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department, which operated the canteens in every district of the city. Previously, the canteens provided meals, financial aid, and other services for orphans, the elderly, the poor and the destitute. Now, through Irena, the canteens also provided clothing, medicine and money for the Jews. They were registered under fictitious Christian names, and to prevent inspections, the Jewish families were reported as being afflicted with such highly infectious diseases as typhus and tuberculosis.

She learned this compassion from her father.  Irena was born in 1910 in Otwock, Poland.  Her father was a doctor.  Most of his patients were poor Jews.

In 1942 the Nazi's rounded up the Jewish people in Poland.  They were placed in the Warsaw Ghetto.  Conditions were terrible.  It was then that Irena decided she must step in to help these desperate people.

Irena smuggled almost 2500 children out of the ghetto with false documents and forged signatures.  She took children out in gunnysacks, body bags, or packed inside loads of goods.  Some children were even taken out in coffins.

It was painful as she watched children and parents separate from one another.

"Can you guarantee they will live?" parents questioned.

She could only guarantee their death if they stayed.

Sisters inside the Catholic church helped Irena.  They never refused to take a child.  They were placed in homes, orphanages and convents.

Irena carefully kept track of the children that were placed.  She kept the childrens' names in code buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's backyard.  Her intention was to eventually reunite them with family. 

On October 20, 1943 Irena was arrested by the Nazis.  She was tortured by the Gestapo.  They broke both her feet and legs.  She still refused to give them the information the sought, knowing it would be certain death for the children and the families harboring them.  

She managed to escape from prison, but Irena was a wanted criminal by the Nazis for the duration of the war.

Irena dug up the jars after the war, hoping to reconnect families.  Most had been killed during the Holocaust.

“Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory.”  Irena Sendler died on May 12, 2008, a real life Wonder Woman.