Irena Sendler: a woman of selfless courage

While Daughters of Warsaw is a work of fiction, the novel is inspired by the actions of Żegota, a resistance group operating in Poland during the Second World War, and in particular by one of the group's leaders, Irena Sendler.

Irena was a Catholic nurse and social worker who saved thousands of Jewish children from being murdered by the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. She kept meticulous records of the children's names and aliases, which she buried beneath an apple tree, in the hope they might be reunited with their families once the war was over. Tragically, however, many of the children's families perished in the Nazi death camps. She was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel in 1965, although she continued to resist being called a "hero" until her death in 2008.