Irena Sendler and our children

Tonight I watched a film,made in 2009,which portrays an aspect of the Warsaw ghetto during the second World War.and the decent and courageous acts of Irena Sendler. She saved 2500 children from death.

As always, it is the accounts of how some people managed to survive the genocide-that keeps me -resolved to live.Frequently, I avoid watching films like this- as the visual images tend to make me ill.I read their accounts instead. But this one, I watch.

WHAM. There it is- that punch in the gut that leaves me without breath Just like then. October 17,1986.12: 02 p.m.

It is a scene in the movie when a Gestapo official knocks on the door.Irena opens the door,another man comes with the officer.

October 17, 1986 A knock on the door. There is a strange man there, dressed in jeans,a plaid shirt and big worker boots-the kind my husband used to kick me with. With steel toes. This man sticks his foot in the door so I cannot close it. Behind him is a policeman-whom I recognize. He was often one of two who scooped me off the road when I had fled to avoid a continued beating.

The strange and aggressive man says he is there to take my 7 year old girl to live with her father. There is no judgement. I have no judgement. I have been to court a zillion times- but have no judgement and no news. I tell him to take his foot out of my door.Thank god there is a policeman there. He says why. I say-so I can close the door. It takes several REALLY firm statements on my part,before he does.Before he does- he says in a quaky voice- what are you going to do. I say- I am going to ask my child to go upstairs.Guess he knows the policeman will arrest HIM if he pushes through me- he removes his foot. I close the door.

I ask my child to go up to my room.She refused to go to school today. She knew. She has known for a month or more. (I realized years later)She goes-as if she is going to her death. Which- in so many ways,she was.

She asked why. I told her there was a strange man at the door and I did not want her to hear what I might say to him.

The two men come in. I can remember that I phoned my lawyer- but,of course, it was lunch-no-one in.I phoned a friend up the street. She came. I remember my child said she wanted lunch. I made a sandwich.

Finally- the man says- tell her she is going to her father's now-and to get some things she wants.

(me)" Oh NO. I will NOT tell my child she has to go and live with her abuser."(sexual,emotional,psychological)She also witnessed him try to kill me. YOU tell her. It is on YOUR heads. And before you do- you will write down on this legal pad, what your name is and what you are doing here.And sign it. He did. I still have it.Unless it has self-incinerated.Paper from hell.

And that was the end for life as we knew it.For me and my children.I subsequently lost all my properties,jobs,antiques,furnishings etc. Gone. The abuser continued his harassment. I finally left the country. Just to survive.

So- there is, of course a difference in magnitude.Of people destroyed. But the individual anguish and behavior of social workers- is the same as the anguish of one family,their children-and the use of force, in that scene in the movie.

All because I reported and reported and reported all our abuses- and our animals-some shot- some died from acts of bestiality.

I always paid child support- but via a government agency- to avoid contact with the abuser.
Children- hardly ever saw them again.Now ? I believe I know which cities they are in.

You see, apparently the social services did not believe: me,the children.the police, the doctor the psychiatrist ,neighbours etc. Seems the SS (social sevices) thought I was inventing and had made all the above mentioned people- believe a fantasy.Despite hospital reports-semen in a child's underwear etc.They thought I was suffering from PAS/PA. That I pushed all these people to "lie".

I wish Irena Sendler could have lived near us. Maybe she could have saved my children.