Irene Shashar

Many questions about her survival are still a mystery to Irene today. Her mother orchestrated their escape from the Warsaw ghetto, leading her through a manhole, wading through the sewage until they climbed out into Warsaw again, outside the ghetto walls. To this day, Irene doesn’t know how her mother calculated the exit point correctly, or how she even came up with the plan in the first place. Or how, while hiding in Warsaw, she could always sense when they needed to leave the place they were staying and find shelter elsewhere.

Her mother died soon after the war, in 1948, so Irene will never get answers to these questions.

The Warsaw Ghetto

Soon after Poland’s annexation, the Nazi regime enacted the same antisemitic legislation and administrative measures that had been in effect in Germany since 1935. Apartments and houses were confiscated, and their Jewish owners evicted, often forced to live in ghettos, segregated from the rest of society as a means of control and isolation. Beginning in 1939 in Piotrków Trybunalski, over 1 140 ghettos were created, largely – but not exclusively – in Eastern Europe. Some lasted only a few days, while others remained for months or even years.

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest in Nazi-occupied Europe. Originally a Jewish area of the city, segments of its non-Jewish population were expelled, while Jewish people from other neighbourhoods moved in, including two-year-old Irene and her parents. A wall now trapped its inhabitants, and the flow of resources was heavily controlled. Relentless waves of dispossessed refugees arrived, as the ghetto became a transit point where Jews were held before being sent to concentration camps. At its peak, 450 000 residents were crammed in just 3.3 square kilometres. In such incredibly overcrowded conditions, many died of starvation and disease.

In 1942, when Irene was five years old, her father was shot in the ghetto. His death precipitated their escape: his murdered body in the kitchen was the breaking point for Irene’s mother.

The vision of his pale, mangled body was the last I ever knew of the man I loved most. I do not even know what happened to his body. Maybe it was buried, but who really knows for sure? ...

Worse than the trauma of finding his body, remains the fact that he disappeared from the earth and my life without leaving even a trace of who he was. Most everyone has photographs to document their childhood, but the tragic nature of mine left me with nothing except the faintest memories of my youth and my angelic parents.

Into hiding

Irene and her mother were now on their own. Their survival became more desperate. Shortly after that horrific day, during their usual hunt for scraps of food, something was different: Irene’s mother was carrying a bulky bag and let Irene take her doll, her beloved Laleczka. Suddenly, her mother pulled open a sewer cover and gently tossed Irene down into the sewer.

We were crossing the sewer for the entire ghetto area of Warsaw. 80 years later, I can remember the stench like it was yesterday. I clutched my travel companion, my beloved Laleczka, close to my chest. I told her to be strong, but neither she nor I were immune to the horrific conditions in the sewer. She was more than my precious doll, she was my best friend, and even she was not safe in this hell on earth.

After escaping the ghetto, Irene spent the rest of the war within the confines of wardrobes. She became what is known a 'Holocaust hidden child'. Her mother could pass as an ‘Aryan’. She had friends from earlier years who were willing to employ her in their homes, even though this was dangerous for them.

One specific instance stands out in my mind... My mother and I were both hiding in an attic of a Polish farmhouse when German officers pounded upstairs to inspect it. Luckily, their search equipment consisted of a stick and not a flashlight. My mother squeezed me tightly as they passed, and one of the sticks touched my foot. The seconds ticked by painstakingly slowly and I held my breath, but they must have mistaken my bony toes for a lumpy sack of potatoes. Once more, my life was spared by a stroke of luck.

After the war

Irene was placed in a Jewish orphanage in the northwest of Paris, Manoir de Denouval in Andrésy, while her mother worked in Paris during the week and visited her on Sundays. One Sunday in the spring of 1948, she simply did not come. She had passed away from a heart attack.

Before her sudden passing, Irene's mother had still made arrangements for her and Irene to live with relatives in Peru who had also survived the war. Here, Irene found a loving family. As a top student, she earned a scholarship and a degree in Latin American studies at New York University and was offered a job in the Spanish and Latin American Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the age of 25, she moved to Israel and became the youngest faculty member of the university. She spent the next 40 years there as a lecturer.

I was blessed with the opportunity to have children and grandchildren, and I did the very thing Hitler tried so hard to prevent. But Hitler did not win.

Irene continues to campaign against antisemitism. In January 2020, she addressed the UN, telling the audience that she ‘emerged from the Shoah with hope and courage and with a dream for the world. But I implore you. Don’t let my dream turn into a nightmare.’ Her speech at the Senate of Spain in January 2023 reminded listeners of their ‘duty to future generations who must know and not forget, in order to have a fairer and more humane future for themselves.’ In April 2025, she joined the March of the Living, a silent procession held annually to commemorate Holocaust victims and call for an end to antisemitism.

I marched the March of the Living at the age of 87 from Auschwitz to Birkenau in the name of 1.5 million Jewish children that could not and never will be able to do this, and I’ve done that in their name and in their memory.

Irene’s message to Europe:

... The resurgence of antisemitism means that the hate of the past is still with us. Jews are again not feeling safe living in Europe. After the Holocaust, this should be unacceptable. ‘Never again’ should truly mean NEVER AGAIN.

Speech at the European Parliament, 25 January 2024