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Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

Sun, 25 Aug 2008 00:34:00 GMT

posted by mandi3939
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

Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

Sun, 25 Aug 2008 00:34:00 GMT

Polish Woman Irena Sendler Saved 2,500 Jewish Children During World War II

Mon, 22 Jul 2008 04:31:00 GMT

posted by pzmiller

The story titled “Irena’s Children” by Gavriel Horan has been going around on the internet about 97-year-old Irena Sendler (she later died in Warsaw, Poland, on May 12, 2008, at the age of 98 from pneumonia).

From 1972 to 1978, as editor of Friday Forum – the monthly supplement of the Jewish Exponent, I published Holocaust survivors’ stories and stories of some of their rescuers.

Yet I had never heard of Irena Sendler and the incredible story of how she smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and found places to care for these children. And although she was eventually captured by the Nazis and tortured (leaving life-long injuries), she never gave up the names of her co-conspirators or revealed the whereabouts of any of the children.

For me – the most amazing part of a story with many amazing parts is Irena’s background:

Contrary to most Polish people who were Catholic and were taught to hate Jews, Irena had a father who was one of the first Polish Socialists and had raised his daughter to respect and love all people. In addition, he was a doctor and many of his patients were poor Jews.

When I read Horan’s description of her father, the lines from the song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” from Rogers & Hammerstein’s musical SOUTH PACIFIC ran through my head:

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught

Irena’s father had done the exact opposite, and here is what Horan wrote about him:

When a typhus epidemic broke out in 1917, he was the only doctor who stayed in the area. He contracted the disease. His dying words to seven-year-old Irena were: “If you see someone drowning, you must jump in and try to save them, even if you don’t know how to swim.”

Horan’s story of Irena Sendler is so compelling that I urge you to read it for yourself at http://richards-creations.net/Pages/8/_Irena-s_Children.html. And there’s also a website with information at www.irenasendler.org.

May we all be inspired by this phenomenal woman, who Horan reports as saying: “I only did what was normal. I could have done more. This regret will follow me to my death.”

Technorati Tags:
Irena Sendler, Gavriel Horan, Warsaw Ghetto, Nazis, Holocaust, WWII

Irena Sendler: Life in a Jar

Tue, 14 May 2008 20:03:02 GMT

posted by pennyronning

In the darkest of times, strength of character still rises...in some.

Irena Sendler's strength ran as deep as her courage ran high.

Irena passed away this week at the age of 98.

Who was Irena Sendler?

She was strength beyond measure.

She was courage defined.

She was humanity at its best.

She was willingness to help.

She was fear defied.

She was refusal to give in.

She was the woman who planned and organized the rescue of 2,500 Jewish children from certain death at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.

As a social worker in Warsaw, Poland, Irena was appalled by the treatment, murders, and annihilation of the Jewish people she had known all her life. To protect as many families as she could, Irena would document these families as being infected with terribly contagious diseases so they would not be visited by the Nazis. When the Nazis forced all Jews into one section of town and walled them off from the rest of society, Irena came up with a new way to protect as many of these hurting people as she could.

Organizing a team of 20 rescuers, Irena developed a plan for her and her team to enter the Warsaw Ghetto. Once inside, Irena convinced Jewish families with babies and small children to turn over their young ones to her and her team. Smuggling the babies and children out by any means possible (sometimes making them look like sacks of grain or), Irena found non-Jewish families to adopt the children, placed them in convents or orphanages, and documented the children with Catholic identities.

Determined to not let the children's true identities remain unknown, Irena wrote every name of every child on pieces of paper she kept hidden in jars in her home. As the Nazis started to move in on her, Irena hid the jars in one of her team member's yard. Upon capture, Irena was beaten severely breaking both her feet and legs, crippling her for life, but Irena refused to give any information. Sentenced to death, Irena's team bribed one of the Gestapo and at the last minute, Irena's execution was halted. Although Irena eventually escaped from prison, she was hunted by the Gestapo throughout the remaining years of the war.

True to her character, after the war Irena faithfully sought out to reunite each rescued child with any surviving relatives throughout Europe. While most families perished during the horrors of the holocaust, a small number were able to be located.

Here's where this story takes a twist.

A dark twist.

With the invasion of communism and eventual reign in Poland, Irena's story remained silent for more than 40 years.

Irena's heroism and acts of true greatness were virtually unknown to all in her home country.

But the truth ALWAYS finds exactly who it is meant to find.

Enter 1999 and Norman Conrad, rural Kansas high school history teacher.

Encouraging and challenging his students to extend the boundaries of the classroom; contribute to the teaching of history, tolerance, and respect; and do all of this with the goal of submitting a project to that year's National History Day event.

Megan Stewart, Elizabeth Chambers and Jessica Shelton, all in ninth grade, and Sabrina Coons, eleventh grade, joined forces and set about finding a project to submit.

Having read a 1994 article on an historically unknown Irena Sendler, which he thought may have been in error, Mr. Conrad suggested the girls research the validity of the story and determine if a project could be developed from it.

Like I wrote before...

The truth ALWAYS finds who it is meant to find.

With great tenacity, these four young girls went to work.

And what a job they did.

Discovering not only the truth of Irena Sendler's heroism, but Irena Sendler herself!

What grew to become a tremendous friendship of respect and admiration between the four girls and Irena also grew into a live presentation, Life in a Jar, that continues to be performed this day throughout the United States.

Through Life in a Jar, the national and international media learned the story of Irena Sendler and now, so has the world.

To learn more about Life in a Jar and Irena Sendler, honorary citizen of Israel; recipient of the internationally prestigious Order of the Smile; recipient of Poland's highest honor, Order of the White Eagle; title bearer of Righteous Among Nations; and Noble Peace Prize nominee, visit Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project.

"Why Did I Save 2500 Children?"

Sun, 19 May 2008 00:41:00 GMT

posted by montysbar
If you are not familiar with the story of Irena Sendler go to PoliticalMavens.com and read
Irena Sendler: Why did I save 2500 children? Look at Irena Sendler: Why I saved The Children at the History News Network blog.

In 2007 Irena Sendler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize but the Nobel Committee decided that former vice-president Al Gore was more deserving of recognition because he has actually accomplished absolutely nothing of value to the human race.

Irena Sendler died this week. She will not soon be forgotten.