Hail the heart of a volunteer

The worst of times brings out the best in people. It draws selflessness from an almost bottomless depth — the depths of the heart.

More than a decade ago, a young boy named Sajid Bulig participated in a fluvial parade in Bulacan. The raft he and the other revelers were on capsized and little Sajid swam to safety. On dry land, he noticed his companions struggling to keep afloat on the deep river and he swam back, rescuing several of them till a beam from a raft fell on him. He died, a little boy with a big heart. Many are alive today because of him.

Eighteen-year-old Muelmar Magallanes braved the rampaging floods of Ondoy to rescue more than 30 people, till, exhausted and battered by the waves, he was swept away to his own death.

Not all who risk their lives to save others perish. Others live to be shining examples of selflessness, just like Ralph Lee, the “Jetski Judge” who, like a comics superhero, appeared out of nowhere on his jetski to rescue shivering people from rooftops in Novaliches. One of those he saved called him “Superman.”

Other heroes are the thousands who, mobilized by text and Facebook messages from their alma mater, their civic organizations, their barkada, trooped to places where they could be of help. My son Chino took a leave from work to help out in the relief operations in Ateneo. I think virtually every mother has a child who is volunteering his/her help in the aftermath of Ondoy — packing and distributing goods and clearing submerged areas of mud and debris.

According to a post in Facebook by the Red Cross’ Joanne Zapanta Andrada, two teenagers from Southern Leyte traveled to Manila to donate blood for the typhoon victims. Wasn’t it just yesterday when Leyte was hard hit by floods and landslides and we all rushed to help its victims? Now, two Leytenos are giving back.

There is something beautiful coming out of this disaster — people are taking it upon themselves to make a difference, to be the link in the chain of goodness that is going to haul away the helpless and the hopeless from the floods of despair.

In the movie Pearl Harbor, the commander (portrayed by Alec Baldwin) of a group of fighter pilots said he was confident the US would win the war because of men like his pilots. They volunteered for this deadly mission, he said, and there is no sturdier heart than the heart of a volunteer. That’s a Hollywood one-liner for you, but it speaks of the resolve of someone who is not paid or required to do his job — he plunges head-on into it to the death, or till the fat lady sings.

* * *

That one man or woman can make a difference in the face of adversity was proven by the heroes of Ondoy. And it brings to mind an e-mail I recently got, entitled, “Don’t forget this lady.” Like the lads from Leyte and the Jetski Judge, Irena Sendler volunteered for her mission. She took it upon herself to make a difference — 2,500 times over.

Read on:

There recently was a death of a 98-year-old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ‘ulterior motive.’

She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the Ghetto.

The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids’/infants’ noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2,500 kids/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazis broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parent that may have survived it and reunited the family.

Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

* * *

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, when Hitler and his Nazis built the Warsaw Ghetto and herded 500,000 Polish Jews behind its walls to await liquidation, many Polish gentiles turned their backs or applauded. Not Irena Sendler. She defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. As a health worker, she sneaked the children out between 1942 and 1943 to safe hiding places and found non-Jewish families to adopt them.

In 1942, the Nazis herded hundreds of thousands of Jews into a 16-block area that came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto. The Ghetto was sealed and the Jewish families ended up behind its walls, only to await certain death. About 5,000 people were dying a month from starvation and disease in the Ghetto, and she decided to help the Jewish children to get out.

For Irena Sendler, a young mother herself, persuading parents to part with their children was in itself a horrendous task. Finding families willing to shelter the children, and thereby willing to risk their life if the Nazis ever found out, was also not easy. She recruited at least one person from each of the 10 centers of the Social Welfare Department.

With their help, she issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures. Irena Sendler successfully smuggled almost 2,500 Jewish children to safety and gave them temporary new identities.

Some children were taken out in gunnysacks or body bags. Some were buried inside loads of goods. A mechanic took a baby out in his toolbox. Some kids were carried out in potato sacks, others were placed in coffins. “Can you guarantee they will live?” Irena later recalled the distraught parents asking. But she could only guarantee they would die if they stayed. “In my dreams,” she said, “I still hear the cries when they left their parents.”

Irena Sendler accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. “I sent most of the children to religious establishments,” she recalled. “I knew I could count on the Sisters.” Irena also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: “No one ever refused to take a child from me,” she said.

The children were given false identities and placed in homes, orphanages and convents. Irena Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the children’s original names and their new identities. She kept the only record of their true identities in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor’s back yard, across the street from German barracks, hoping she could someday dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past.

In all, the jars contained the names of 2,500 children...

But the Nazis became aware of Irena’s activities, and on Oct. 20, 1943 she was arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, who broke her feet and legs. She withstood the torture, refusing to betray either her associates or any of the Jewish children in hiding.

Sentenced to death, Irena was saved at the last minute. She escaped from prison but for the rest of the war she was pursued by the Gestapo.

After the war she dug up the jars and used the notes to track down the 2,500 children she placed with adoptive families and to reunite them with relatives scattered across Europe. But most lost their families during the Holocaust in Nazi death camps.

The children had known her only by her code name Jolanta. But years later, after she was honored for her wartime work, her picture appeared in a newspaper. “A man, a painter, telephoned me,” said Sendler, “‘I remember your face,’ he said. `It was you who took me out of the ghetto.’ I had many calls like that!”

Irena Sendler did not think of herself as a hero. She claimed no credit for her actions. “I could have done more,” she said. “This regret will follow me to my death.”

She passed away on May 12, 2008, at the age of 98.

She was a volunteer.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected])