Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

We hear everyday about people that are considered Heroes - however, the ones you don't hear about on the news are sometimes the most inspiring. One thing I love about the internet is how much more easily you can learn about things that aren't taught in school. I found one of those things today - an amazingly inspiring story.

In 1999 four Kansas high school students wrote and preformed a play called "Life in a Jar." The play was about the life of Irena Sendlerowa, also called Irena Sendler. Why did they feel this woman was worthy of having a play written about her?

The year is 1910, and Irena Sendler is born and grows up in Otwock, Poland. Raised Catholic, she worked as a social worker until the German Occupation of Poland began in 1939 (Remember WWII?) She began helping Jews with such simple means as providing food and water.

She and others created over 3,000 false documents to assist Jewish families. She later joined the Children's Division of Zegota (a Polish underground group to assist Jewish people) eventually becoming that divisions leader.

By 1940, the Nazis had created the Ghettos, which cut the Jews off from those who would help them. The Ghetto was sixteen square blocks, and over 450,000 Jewish people were imprisoned here. When Nazis refused entry to social workers into the Jewish Ghettos, she gathered false papers that allowed her in as a nurse to combat the rampant diseases (typhoid was common, it caused the death of her father when she was only 7.) Once she entered the Ghetto Irena would don an armband with the yellow Star of David in solidarity with the Jews.

Irena began rescuing orphan children from inside the Ghetto, bringing them to the "Aryan" side where they could then be protected and hidden. She and 10 carefully chosen others then began smuggling out other children. They used boxes, sacks, coffins and suitcases, any means they could to protect and save the children. The names of the children were written down so that later they could be reunited with family. For safekeeping, two identical jars with the names of the children were buried.

In 1943 Irena was captured by the Nazis and tortured, having both legs and feet fractured. She was sentenced to death; however Zegota had bribed the executioner. Denying her escape, the Nazis placed posters all over the city announcing her death. Irena even managed to see these posters for herself.

While no longer able to go and rescue children, Irena was hidden for the rest of the war. Once liberated, she was able to go and retrieve the jars with the names of the children. She was the only person who knew where they were hidden.

Two thousand, five hundred children were saved by Irena's work. While Zegota's goal was to return the children to their families, most had died at the Treblinka death camp. The orphaned children were adopted.

'Life in a Jar' started as a National History Day project in September of 1999. Four students (Megan Stewart, Liz Cambers, Sabrina Coons and Jessica Shelton) began looking for information about Irena Sendler. Mr. Conard had given them a clipping he had found in a 1994 issue of U.S. News and World Report. The mention of Irena was in a story called "Other Schindlers." Only one web site on the Internet mentioned Irena, it was not until the students visited Poland in 2001 that Irena's story became known to the world. At last count there were over 80,000 web sites on the Internet mentioning Irena.

She was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize - she lost to Al Gore who was recognized for his interest in Global Warming. I am going to avoid editorializing the Nobel Committee at this point.

On May 12, 2008, Irena passed away in Warsaw, Poland. While she is gone, her message and spirit can live on.

More information can be found at http://www.irenasendler.org