IN SEASON

Named after wartime heroine Irena Sendler, May saw POLIN’s park transformed by spectacular red tulips…

More commonly associated with the daffodil – a flower that was first used to commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by the social activist and former insurgent Marek Edelman – the area surrounding the POLIN museum saw itself transformed in May courtesy of a sea of red tulips. Planted last autumn by the Dutch Ambassador, Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski and Irena Sendler’s daughter, Janina Zgrzembska, the three-thousand bulbs came into full bloom last month.

Lining the museum park’s Sendler Alley, the variety was first created in 2008 by the Dutch grower Jan Lighart. Named in honour of Irena Sendler, and characterised by a small yellow spot, the tulips have come to be regarded as something of an elite variety.

What’s In A Name

Born in Warsaw in 1910, Irena Sendler joined the Polish Underground during the city’s Nazi occupation. Heading the children’s section of Żegota (the Polish Council to Aid Jews), she is credited with saving around 2,500 Jews from certain death. Despite her arrest and subsequent torture, she refused to reveal anything about her conspiratorial activities. On the day of her scheduled execution, she was freed after German officials were bribed by Żegota. Recognised in 1965 by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, she passed away in the city of her birth at the age of 98.