Preparations in full swing for unveiling of statue in Newark honouring second world war humanitarian hero Irena Sendler

Council staff have spent today (Friday) sprucing up the chapel in Newark Cemetery ahead of the unveiling of a statue that immortalises a humanitarian hero of the second world war.

The statue of Irena Sendler is to be erected and unveiled in Fountain Gardens on London Road, Newark, a week on Sunday in a covid-secure ceremony that the public are asked not to attend to ensure it is regulation-compliant.

A plinth has been erected in Fountain Gardens ready to take the statue.

The statue, by sculptor Andrew Lilley, has been largely funded by the Institute of Polish Remembrance and was offered to Newark and Sherwood District Council, which was honoured to accept and display it, honouring Newark's unshakeable wartime links with that nation that continue to exist today.

During the second world war, Irena worked at the Department for Social Welfare and Public Health in Warsaw, German-occupied Poland.

She was part of a network of workers and volunteers from that department, mostly women, who smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto.

She would provide them with false identity documents and shelter them with willing Polish families or in orphanages and care facilities, including Catholic convents, saving those children from the Holocaust.

Irena was unmasked and, in October, 1943, arrested by the Gestapo. However, she had managed to hide the list of names and locations of all those rescued Jewish children — preventing this information from falling into the hands of the Gestapo.

Withstanding torture and imprisonment, Irena never revealed anything. She was sentenced to death but narrowly escaped on the day of her execution after the guards escorting her were bribed.

She is credited with saving hundreds of children, many of whom's parents died in Nazi death camps.

Newark and Sherwood District Council said: "The chapel hasn’t been used for over 15 months and needed some TLC. The team have done a great job so far getting it ready for this special event.

"Irena's story is truly remarkable and it is an honour to have her statue come to Newark."

Read more of Irena's remarkable story and watch a video of how and why the statue was created