Allena Moore’s Reviews > Irena's Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto > Status Update

When Irena was incarcerated, who was running her organization? Who was helping the kids who she had saved? I know that the Zegota were funding Irena and helping out. But Irena was the one who was active. So when Irena got arrested did everything stop? Or did the people within the Irena resistance step up? It makes me wonder what would have happened if Irena died. Would have all the names have been released?

Irena was taken by the Gestapo because of her hand in the resistance work. Irena said she would never tell anything never rat out her friends, and that she would be able to withstand the torture. But at the end of the chapter it talked about the first day so I think that Irena will be in there for a while then she will end up being able to escape and help the rest of the prisoners to escape.

On page 165 Irena states," They would come, eventually." She was talking about the Nazis. Irena thought that at some point she would get caught and she would be killed. But yet she never stopped what she was doing to try and prevent it, she was sneaking into ghettos to save people from burning buildings, giving up all the money she had to get soap to give children a bath.

So if I'm being honest I really wasn't liking this book. I thought that it was really boring and moving really really slow. I also thought that there were a lot of unnecessary story lines and just things I didn't really need to know. But now after reading I am starting to see why we had to know all of those little details.

One thing that I found out from the book that I didn't know before I started reading was that there were Irena's children. Before I heard about this book I had no clue that Irena and her welfare group helped to get children out of ghettos, stop them from going to labor camps and save them from certain death.

I noticed that people in Irena's circle are in more danger than most. I was thinking that since a lot of them weren't Jewish and alot of them were also in with the Germans they were safe. Also alot of them were also not part of the smuggling that Irena and a few others were doing that they would be safer than the others.

While reading I started to realize that how they handled the children during WW2 kept changing. At first they would give time to get them off the streets and some guards would look the other way when people would smuggle them out of the ghettos but then things started to change and they were becoming more and more suspicious.

In Irena's Children it talks about the underground tunnels that the people in the ghettos would use to have religious services and distribute news. But why did people not try to escape through them. Or even when did people that were fighting for the Jews one use the tunnels as a way to get supplies to the ones that needed it without getting caught. Or as a way to ambush the Germans.

The people in the Ghettos are spreading disease quickly within the ghetto. But there is also disease spreading outside of the ghettos. But if they aren't allowed to leave the ghettos then how is it getting out? WOuldn't have to be coming from the guards ( who are German ) and they are considered to be " the best human race". So aren’t they the ones who are making things worse.

With just starting to read this book I sated to notice that they have talked about Irenas appearance multiple times ( blond hair and blue eyes). Her appearance is like one of a Germans. I think that Irena is able to cause such a big difference in the war because she looks like a German and could even be mistaken by one.