RIP, Irena Sendler - and a tribute to my grandparents

Like many social workers in pre-war Poland, Mrs Sendler belonged to the Socialist Party: not for its political ideology, but because it combined compassion with dislike of money-worship.

- The Economist, May 24th, 2008

I think this sentence encapsulates the soul of European socialism. Though my American-educated, Cartesian mind believes in the logic of market economics and free trade, my heart is true to its French roots. My grandparents worshiped two institutions with equal degrees of veneration: the Public School and the Catholic Church, and instilled in their children (and later, my cousins and me) the sacrosanct values of education and compassion.