People can be only divided into good or bad; their race

“People can be only divided into good or bad; their race, religion, nationality don’t matter.” – Irena Sendler

These words, spoken by Irena Sendler, rise from one of humanity’s darkest valleys — the years of war, hatred, and genocide that engulfed the world during the Second World War. Her voice, though soft, carries the power of truth forged in suffering and courage. When she said that people can only be divided into good or bad, she was not speaking as a philosopher in comfort, but as a woman who risked her life daily to save others. Her wisdom was not born of theory, but of action — of seeing with her own eyes that virtue and evil do not wear the colors of skin, the names of nations, or the symbols of faith. They dwell instead in the choices of the human heart.

Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker during the Nazi occupation of Poland, and she witnessed firsthand the brutal persecution of the Jewish people. While many turned away in fear or indifference, she entered the Warsaw Ghetto, carrying hope hidden in her satchel. There, under the constant threat of death, she helped smuggle more than 2,500 Jewish children to safety — disguising their names, finding them refuge with Christian families, and recording their true identities in secret jars buried beneath an apple tree. She did not ask the children what faith they belonged to or what blood ran in their veins. To her, they were simply human beings, deserving of life, love, and dignity. Her belief was as clear and unwavering as her courage: there are no “Jewish children” or “Christian children,” only children.

From such deeds came her truth — that the divisions men create are illusions, born of fear, pride, and ignorance. She had seen the terrible power of these illusions. The Nazis, in their hatred, believed that humanity could be ranked and purified; that one race, one creed, one people, were destined to rule and others to perish. They built their empire upon this lie — and in its shadow, millions of innocents suffered. But Sendler’s life stood as a defiance to that darkness. In every act of rescue, she declared a deeper truth: that good and evil are not tribes, but choices.

The ancients, too, spoke this wisdom long before her time. The philosopher Socrates said that no evil deed is done from knowledge, but from ignorance — that those who do harm do so because they have forgotten that all souls are kin. And centuries later, the Buddha taught that hatred never ends through hatred, but only through compassion. Sendler’s words, though born in the twentieth century, echo these eternal voices. They remind us that righteousness is not inherited but lived; that the true measure of a person lies not in where they come from, but in how they treat others.

Yet her message carries more than comfort — it carries challenge. For it is easy to agree with such words in peace, but harder to live them in peril. Sendler risked torture and death for the sake of strangers, guided only by her conviction that goodness must act even when the world turns cruel. When she was captured and beaten by the Gestapo, she refused to betray the children she had saved. She survived only through the intervention of others who shared her courage — proof, again, that goodness begets goodness, even in times of fear. Her life teaches that the line between good and evil runs not between nations or faiths, but through every human heart — and that each of us must choose, daily, which side we will stand on.

The lesson is this: reject the false boundaries that divide mankind. Do not ask first who a person is, but what they do. See through the masks of prejudice, the banners of tribe and religion, and look instead for the fire of kindness, the strength of mercy. A soul that helps another is holy, no matter what god it prays to. A heart that harms is corrupted, no matter what nation’s flag it waves. The path of goodness is open to all — it requires only the courage to walk it.

So remember the wisdom of Irena Sendler, a woman who chose compassion over comfort, and truth over fear. “People can be only divided into good or bad; their race, religion, nationality don’t matter.” Let these words be written not only in books, but upon the heart. In a world still torn by hatred, her voice calls across time: Be one of the good. Stand for what is just. Defend the innocent. Love beyond the limits of your own tribe. For when we live by these truths, we do more than honor the dead — we keep alive the hope that one day, humanity will remember that it is one family, under one sky, bound by one destiny: the duty to love.