“Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory.”

Irena Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker in Warsaw, Poland when the second World War broke out and the Nazis invaded. Before the invasion, she oversaw the city “canteens”, which provided assistance to people in need, and after the Nazi invasion these canteens also provided medicine, food and clothing to the persecuted Jewish population.

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“Following the example of the Righteous, I want to believe that moral strength and individual conscience can always prevail.”

Simone Veil was born in Nice, France, in 1927 in a non-religious Jewish family. Daughter of Yvonne and André Jacob, she had two sisters and one brother, and was the youngest of a family of six.

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Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in 1862 in the state of Mississippi in the United States. Wells’ parents were heavily involved in politics which most likely caused her to also become interested in the topic. After the American Civil War, lasting from 1861 to 1865, slaves were emancipated and “negro schools” were opened.

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Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was born in Vienna, Austria in 1897 and was the first woman architect in the Austro-Hungarian empire. She was also the first female student at the University of Applied Arts of Vienna. Though her family was liberal for their times, they did not at first encourage her studies of architecture. “They thought that I would starve to death. Nobody could imagine hiring a woman to build a house in 1916 – not even I could imagine it,” said Schütte-Lihotzky on her 100th birthday. However, she quickly proved her aptitude by winning prizes for her designs even before graduating. Schütte-Lihotzky immediately understood that design and functionality would be the trend of the future.

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