I just got this in an email. Great story of a children's research project -- but even greater the story of Irena Sendler.
THE DISCOVERY
Students from rural Kansas, discover a Catholic woman, who saved Jewish children. Few had heard of Irena Sendlerowa in 1999, now after 250 presentations of Life in a Jar, a web site with huge usage and world-wide media attention, Irena is known to the world. How did this beautiful story develop? Read below for the answers.
In the fall of 1999, a rural Kansas teacher encouraged four students to work on a year long National History Day project which would among other things; extend the boundaries of the classroom to families in the community, contribute to history learning, teach respect and tolerance, and meet our classroom motto, “He who changes one person, changes the world entire”.
Three ninth graders, Megan Stewart, Elizabeth Cambers, and Jessica Shelton, and an eleventh grader, Sabrina Coons, accepted the challenge and decided to enter their project in the National History Day program (eventually a number of other male and female students were added to the project). The teacher showed them a short clipping from a March 1994 issue of News and World Report, which said, 'Irena Sendler saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942-43'. He told the girls the article might be a typographical error, since he had not heard of this woman or story. The students began their research and looked for primary and secondary sources throughout the year.
IRENA'S LIFE (SEE MUCH MORE ABOUT IRENA ON THE SENDLER FAMILY PAGE AND THE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PAGE+we have Irena facts at the bottom of this page)
They found that Irena Sendler, as a non-Jewish social worker, had gone into the Warsaw Ghetto, talked Jewish parents and grandparents out of their children, rightly saying that all were going to die in the Ghetto or in death camps, taking the children past the Nazi guards or using one of the many means of escape from the Ghetto-the old courthouse for example, and then adopting them into the homes of Polish families or hiding them in convents and orphanages. She made lists of the children's real names and put the lists in jars, then buried the jars in a garden, so that someday she could dig up the jars and find the children to tell them of their real identity. The Nazi's captured her and she was beaten severely, but the Polish underground bribed a guard to release her, and she entered into hiding.
Irena had made false documents for people in the Warsaw area from 1939 to 1942, helping save many, BEFORE she joined the underground Zegota and started saving children. In fact, Irena's life has been one of standing up for others. Her father was an inspiration for serving the world. Irena wants us to mention that ten others were under her guidance in saving children from the Ghetto, and a number of others were helping outside the Ghetto.
FROM KANSAS TO THE WORLD
The students wrote a performance (Life in a Jar) in which they portrayed the life of Irena Sendler. They have performed this program for numerous clubs and civic groups in the community, around the state of Kansas, all over North America and in Europe (250 presentations as of November 2008). The community of Uniontown has little diversity and no Jewish students in the school district. The community was inspired by the project and sponsored an Irena Sendler Day. The students began to search for the final resting place of Irena and discovered she was still alive and living in Warsaw, Poland. Irena's story was unknown world-wide, even though she had received esteemed recognition from Yad Vashem in the 1960's and support from the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous in New York City. Forty-five years of communism had buried her story, even in her own country.
From that time on they would take a jar to every performance and collect funds for Irena and other Polish rescuers. (They call their performance, Life in a Jar) The significance of this project really started to grow with many numerous contacts. These contacts assisted the students in sending the funds to Poland for the care of Irena and of other rescuers. They wrote Irena and she wrote dozens of deeply meaningful letters to them, with such comments as, "my emotion is being shadowed by the fact that my co-workers have all passed on, and these honors fall to me. I can't find words to thank you, for my own country and the world to know of the bravery of rescuers. Before the day you had written Life in a Jar, the world did not know our story, your performance and work is continuing the effort I started over fifty years ago, you are my dearly beloved ones."
They discovered a Polish student who began to translate for them. They made a collection of the letters and have shared these documents with universities, historical societies, and the Chicago and New York City Jewish Foundations for the Righteous. Their cause for Irena Sendler became a national cause; they had rediscovered this courageous woman. The students appeared on C-SPAN, National Public Radio, CBS, CNN, the Today Show, in numerous newspaper articles, including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and New York Times, and magazine articles, such as Ladies Home Journal and Guidepost. They were invited to perform in Washington, D.C. and before a Jewish foundation in New York City. They have become knowledgeable on subjects such as the Holocaust, World War II, and the Polish Underground. At least twenty colleges and universities have been using their letters from Irena and their project information in their curriculum.
Great emotion pours out of the audience during their presentation. They have literally taken our class motto and brought it to life. They regularly write on their homework papers such notes as, "I'm changing the world" and "Irena's story must be told". Several of the students experienced great emotional situations in life, as had later members of the project. Megan's (Megan portrays Irena) mother was forty and was seriously ill with cancer, she passed away in June of 2006. Sabrina's mother also passed on during the years of the project.
The four original students continued to dream of visiting Warsaw, interviewing Irena, surviving children, and others connected to this story. In January of 2001 they performed before a large school district in a city about 100 miles from our school. A Jewish educator and businessman saw the performance and asked to have lunch with us that day. He told them he would raise the money and send them to Warsaw, if they would go that spring (Irena was 91 and in poor health) and bring back her story. The man raised the money in twenty-four hours.
On May 22, 2001, Mr. Conard traveled with four students, several parents (Bill and Phyllis Cambers, Debra Stewart and a local patron), plus his wife Karen, to Warsaw, Poland. They spent time with Irena Sendler and then extended the boundaries of the classroom to the world. The Polish organization for the Children of the Holocaust arranged a meeting between the rescuers and the children saved, this was the first such meeting in many years. They also met a famous Polish poet who was saved by Irena, and an author of a well known memoir of the Holocaust who called the students rescuers of the rescuer; The Polish press made this story international news. Irena's story was finally reaching others. The students were called "rescuer's, rescuers of Irena's story." by one of the children Irena saved.
The group met Elzbieta Ficowska and heard her beautiful story of being rescued by Irena at the age of 5 months, carried out in a carpenter's box. A great circle of Polish friends have aided the project in many ways.
In 2002 the founders of the project and new students traveled to Poland. They interviewed 24 people connected to Irena and her story, plus visited with Irena on several occasions. They also visited Treblinka and retraced Irena's steps in the Warsaw Ghetto. The story of Irena Sendler continues to expand, continues to inspire.
With this project the students (twelve are now working on the project-see the Sendler family page--including Travis Stewart, and Jaime Walker, who is now portraying Mrs. Rosner) are extending the classroom into the world community in many ways, such as; publishing the interviews, performing before larger audiences, sharing letters of Irena with students and educators, (copies have been requested and sent to over 250 schools) and interviews with local and national press. The students have been contacted by many across the country about a possible book or screenplay. This project has created ongoing interactive communication with families in our community and communities across the country. This web site can reach the students. The original students are now in their mid-twenties and the the four original founders are married, two of them have children. They continue to present Life in a Jar. All of the present students are in college or have graduated.
The Jewish community in Kansas City has reached out in a powerful way to involve itself with the project. The community as a whole has adopted the project, and this courageous woman, as a part of the family. We list the Jacobson's, Krigel's and Isenberg's as families who have assisted in so many ways. Howard and Ro Jacobson established a scholarship fund for Uniontown students who needed help with college.
The story of Irena Sendler is spreading and spreading. Over 1,500 media outlets have presented articles about the Kansas kids and the Polish heroine. As child survivor, Renata Zajdman, a close friend of the project, says, "the young men and women of Kansas put Irena's story on the map."
In 2005, the group again traveled to Poland for presentations of Life in a Jar. You may view the 'news section' of this web site for information on that trip. An international Irena Sendler award was started in 2006. Irena was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Schools have been named after her and a book in Polish and German has been printed.
EPILOGUE
Irena passed away on May 12, 2008. She was buried in a Warsaw, Poland cemetery. Her family and many of the rescued children continue to tell her story of courage and valor. The Life in a Jar students continue to share her legacy through the play, this web site, through schools and study guides, and world media.
This project has allowed these students to reach out and change the world.
a. Irena facts: She was born in Warsaw on February 15, 1910.
b. She passed away in Warsaw on May 12, 2008. (Megan Felt has played Irena in the Life in a Jar play for the past six years, her birthday is May 12)
c. She spent her young child hood in Otwock, Poland.
d. Her father was a doctor and passed away with typhus when she was seven years old.
e. Her mother raised Irena in Warsaw.
f. She was an only child.
g. She attended Warsaw University.
h. Sendler is the surname of her first husband.
i. She married Stefan after World War II, he passed away with heart disease in the early 60's.
j. Irena and Stefan had two children, their son Adam passed away with heart disease on
September 23, 1999, the SAME DAY THE LIFE IN A JAR PROJECT STARTED.
k. Irena was dismissed from Warsaw University for failing to comply with Jewish segregation laws.
l. Irena started making false documents for Jewish friends when the war started in 1939.
m. Irena was an administrator at the Warsaw Social Work Department during the war.
n. She had a network of helpers (twenty five at one time) who rescued people (adults and children) from the Warsaw Ghetto, make false papers for them and found hiding.
o. The majority of the rescue work of taking children out of the Warsaw Ghetto was done in the summer of 1942 in a three month period.
p. The first children they took off the streets were orphaned.
q. The network used dozens of ways to rescue children, they even used a dog on a couple of occasions. The most common route was through the old courthouse.
r. The underground group Zegota was founded in the fall of 1942, she became the head of the children's division and they would eventually find hiding for 2,500 children.
s. The hiding of Jews in Warsaw would take place in Polish homes, convents and orphanages.
t. Irena's network of rescuers were almost all social workers, it consisted of 24 women and one man.
u. Irena was caught by the Gestapo and put in Pawiak Prison. She was tortured and had a leg and arm fractured.
v. She had buried some of the names of the children in jars, along with the help of a friend, to reconnect the children to their Jewish families after the war.
w. Zegota bribed a guard to have released in the night to a member of the Underground. She was about to be executed.
x. She remained in hiding throughout the rest of the war.
y. After World War II the connecting of children to family was very difficult because of the large number of Jewish adults killed at Treblinka and other death camps.
z. The communists considered Irena a subversive after the war.
*She was not German as is being mentioned on so many incorrect web sites. FYI-our web site is based on hundreds of interviews with primary sources and a dozen interviews with Irena, plus over fifty letters from Irena and 4,000 pages of total research. Be careful with some websites and their incorrect information.
http://www.irenasendler.org/thestory.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/sendler.asp
