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It's not prominent, but if you search in the cement concourse in the plaza outside the entrance at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, you can find a tree with an inconspicuous marker that honours one of the most admirable defenders of decency and children who ever responded to Nazi barbarism, Irena Sendler.
Tilar J. Mazzeo's Irena's Children (Simon & Schuster, 2016) is a biographical tribute to the heroic Polish social worker Irena Sendler who saved the lives of an estimated 2,000 Jewish children during World War II. Her life is typically over-shadowed by that of the famed children's author and pedagogue Dr. Janusz Korczak, the orphanage's fundraiser and principal who repeatedly refused sanctuary in order to protect Jewish orphans. Born in Warsaw in 1878, Janusz Korczak was the pen name of Hendryk Goldszmit. He had operated an orphanage in Warsaw prior to the Nazi invasion. Forced to relocate to within the walls of the Warsaw ghetto, Korczak and Sendler co-managed the orphanage as comrades. While he handled the complex politics and fundraising, Sendler managed the day-to-day affairs of education and hygiene. She is now revered for having masterminded the countless, death-defying escapes of orphans who were continuously being smuggled to freedom in safe houses beyond the ghetto.
In 1942, instead of saving his own life, Korczak famously opted to march side-by-side with the orphans from the Warsaw Ghetto to the deportation point from which they would all go to the Treblinka concentration camp for extermination. As they walked as a cavalcade, each child carried a blue knapsack and a favourite book or two. An eyewitness named Joshua Perle later recorded: "Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar."
Sendler was later dubbed 'the female Oskar Schindler.' As a Roman Catholic she was tortured and sentenced to death for her child-smuggling but was released when a guard was bribed. Before she died at age 98 in a Warsaw nursing home, she became one of the first Righteous Gentiles to be honoured at Yad Vashem in 1965. James D. Shipman, a lawyer who was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, has also published an historical novel, Irena's War (Kensington Publishing, 2020).
In 2017, The Belfry Theatre in Victoria presented a critically acclaimed production of Hannah Moscovitch's play about the orphanage, The Children's Republic, in which Kerry Sandomirsky brilliantly depicted the fortitude and wisdom of Korczak's lesser-known female cohort Stefania (Stefa) Wilczynska who first met Korczak in Warsaw in 1908 and remained his closest associate for thirty-four years. They worked together since he founded his first Jewish orphanage at 92 Krochmalna Street in 1911. A believer in the Maria Montessori education system, her heroism has been largely overlooked in the shadow of Sendler's reputation. Rather than accept papers that would have enabled her to leave Poland, she chose to stay with sick children and be the main comforter for the orphans until she, too, marched to her death with the orphans. Anyone who looks very carefully in Yad Vesham will find a brief testimonial from Yitzchak Belfer: "Stefa was with us 24 hours a day. We felt her presence even as we slept. We were also aware of how she worried about our every need."
Tilar J. Mazzeo first gained New York Times bestseller status with The Widow Clicquot, a biography of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, the eponymous founder of the champagne house Veuve Clicquot (HarperCollins 2008). As a cultural historian, Mazzeo proceeded with The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Biography of a Scent (2010) and The Hotel on Place Vendome (2014), both bestsellers. The latter is significant in Holocaust history because it describes intrigues at the Ritz Hotel in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
As soon as the Nazis far too easily overtook Paris in 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the Ritz Hotel to remain in its luxury mode, serving as headquarters for his highest-ranking officers, including Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring while also attracting rich patrons and artists like Coco Chanel who reputedly took a lover in Nazi military intelligence and allegedly used Nazi laws to vanquish Jewish business associates. It’s a story of nasty, evil, ambitious people amid opulence. Arletty, star of Les Enfants du Paradis, had her head forcibly shaved after the war, for her affair with a Luftwaffe officer.
Mazzeo lives in Saanichton, B.C. with her husband, Dr. Robert Miles, a Canadian professor of English, having received her permanent residency papers in 2014. As a wine writer, she doubles as the co-proprietor and winemaker at Parsell Vineyard. As a wine writer she has contributed to Food and Wine and Mental Floss, and has written The Back Lane Wineries of Napa and The Back Lane Wineries of Sonoma (Ten Speed Press). Previously, Mazzeo was the Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English at Colby College in Maine and held teaching appointments at the University of Wisconsin, Oregon State University, and the University of Washington. She was also the Jenny McKeon Moore Writer in Residence in the Creative Writing and English program at the George Washington University from 2010-2011 and a Washington Scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge, UK in the late 1990s.
BOOKS:
Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)
The Widow Clicquot (HarperCollins, 2008)
The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Biography of a Scent (HarperCollins, 2010)
The Hotel on Place Vendome (HarperCollins, 2014)
[BCBW 2020] Alan Twigg / HolocaustLit
BELOW:
Yad Vashem has a prominent memorial for "Janusz Korsczak and the children."
Irena Sendler as a nurse. Tilar J. Mazzeo.
Tilar J. Mazzeo's Irena's Children (Simon & Schuster, 2016) is a biographical tribute to the heroic Polish social worker Irena Sendler who saved the lives of an estimated 2,000 Jewish children during World War II. Her life is typically over-shadowed by that of the famed children's author and pedagogue Dr. Janusz Korczak, the orphanage's fundraiser and principal who repeatedly refused sanctuary in order to protect Jewish orphans. Born in Warsaw in 1878, Janusz Korczak was the pen name of Hendryk Goldszmit. He had operated an orphanage in Warsaw prior to the Nazi invasion. Forced to relocate to within the walls of the Warsaw ghetto, Korczak and Sendler co-managed the orphanage as comrades. While he handled the complex politics and fundraising, Sendler managed the day-to-day affairs of education and hygiene. She is now revered for having masterminded the countless, death-defying escapes of orphans who were continuously being smuggled to freedom in safe houses beyond the ghetto.
In 1942, instead of saving his own life, Korczak famously opted to march side-by-side with the orphans from the Warsaw Ghetto to the deportation point from which they would all go to the Treblinka concentration camp for extermination. As they walked as a cavalcade, each child carried a blue knapsack and a favourite book or two. An eyewitness named Joshua Perle later recorded: "Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar."
Sendler was later dubbed 'the female Oskar Schindler.' As a Roman Catholic she was tortured and sentenced to death for her child-smuggling but was released when a guard was bribed. Before she died at age 98 in a Warsaw nursing home, she became one of the first Righteous Gentiles to be honoured at Yad Vashem in 1965. James D. Shipman, a lawyer who was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, has also published an historical novel, Irena's War (Kensington Publishing, 2020).
In 2017, The Belfry Theatre in Victoria presented a critically acclaimed production of Hannah Moscovitch's play about the orphanage, The Children's Republic, in which Kerry Sandomirsky brilliantly depicted the fortitude and wisdom of Korczak's lesser-known female cohort Stefania (Stefa) Wilczynska who first met Korczak in Warsaw in 1908 and remained his closest associate for thirty-four years. They worked together since he founded his first Jewish orphanage at 92 Krochmalna Street in 1911. A believer in the Maria Montessori education system, her heroism has been largely overlooked in the shadow of Sendler's reputation. Rather than accept papers that would have enabled her to leave Poland, she chose to stay with sick children and be the main comforter for the orphans until she, too, marched to her death with the orphans. Anyone who looks very carefully in Yad Vesham will find a brief testimonial from Yitzchak Belfer: "Stefa was with us 24 hours a day. We felt her presence even as we slept. We were also aware of how she worried about our every need."
Tilar J. Mazzeo first gained New York Times bestseller status with The Widow Clicquot, a biography of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, the eponymous founder of the champagne house Veuve Clicquot (HarperCollins 2008). As a cultural historian, Mazzeo proceeded with The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Biography of a Scent (2010) and The Hotel on Place Vendome (2014), both bestsellers. The latter is significant in Holocaust history because it describes intrigues at the Ritz Hotel in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
As soon as the Nazis far too easily overtook Paris in 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the Ritz Hotel to remain in its luxury mode, serving as headquarters for his highest-ranking officers, including Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring while also attracting rich patrons and artists like Coco Chanel who reputedly took a lover in Nazi military intelligence and allegedly used Nazi laws to vanquish Jewish business associates. It’s a story of nasty, evil, ambitious people amid opulence. Arletty, star of Les Enfants du Paradis, had her head forcibly shaved after the war, for her affair with a Luftwaffe officer.
Mazzeo lives in Saanichton, B.C. with her husband, Dr. Robert Miles, a Canadian professor of English, having received her permanent residency papers in 2014. As a wine writer, she doubles as the co-proprietor and winemaker at Parsell Vineyard. As a wine writer she has contributed to Food and Wine and Mental Floss, and has written The Back Lane Wineries of Napa and The Back Lane Wineries of Sonoma (Ten Speed Press). Previously, Mazzeo was the Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English at Colby College in Maine and held teaching appointments at the University of Wisconsin, Oregon State University, and the University of Washington. She was also the Jenny McKeon Moore Writer in Residence in the Creative Writing and English program at the George Washington University from 2010-2011 and a Washington Scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge, UK in the late 1990s.
BOOKS:
Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)
The Widow Clicquot (HarperCollins, 2008)
The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Biography of a Scent (HarperCollins, 2010)
The Hotel on Place Vendome (HarperCollins, 2014)
[BCBW 2020] Alan Twigg / HolocaustLit
BELOW:
Yad Vashem has a prominent memorial for "Janusz Korsczak and the children."
Irena Sendler as a nurse. Tilar J. Mazzeo.
Articles: 1 Article for this author
THE HOTEL ON PLACE VENDÔME LIFE, DEATH AND BETRAYAL AT THE HÔTEL RITZ IN PARIS
Publisher's Promo (2014)
The Ritz Hotel has always been an international symbol of luxury and glamour, home to film stars, celebrity writers, American heiresses, risqué flappers, playboys and princes. When France fell to the Nazi Occupation in 1940, the Hôtel Ritz was ordered to be the only luxury hotel of its kind in occupied Paris - half of it home to the highest-ranking German officers; the other half home to the rich and famous civilians (and the spies among them) who stayed on in Paris during the Nazi Period.
Sacha Guitry, the Playwright/screenwriter, Serge Lifar the lithe Russian ballet-star and the drug-addled Jean Cocteau and his handsome boyfriend could be found on any given night at Coco Chanel's table in the Hôtel Ritz dining room.
The Rubenesque comic actress Beatrice Bretty and Georges Mandel's mistress would be found sharing cocktails and good times with France's most acclaimed film star known simply as 'Arletty'.
Then there was the Lost Generation - F.Scott Fitzgerald, for whom the Hôtel Ritz bar was a favourite watering hole, and Ernest Hemingway who later, along with his rogue band of "irregulars";, liberated the Hotel Ritz and many bottles of vintage wine from its cellars in the last hours of the occupation.
As the war drew to an agonizing close in the Spring of 1944, these stories all came to a dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking conclusion. Those who had passed the war in opulence at the palace hotel were, at long last, coming to terms with the consequence of luxury and celebrity. And some entered last-minute crises of conscience that would lead them to confront the inhumanity of their own actions and inactions. The result is the story of The Ritz at War - a singular season at the world class hotel, an intimate portrait of the last days of the Second World War.
