The Story Forgotten Until . . .

The postwar years of communism buried her story, even in
her own country—until the Kansas teenagers discovered her. In 2001, the
students traveled to Warsaw to meet Sendler, who helped them improve
their play. Life in a Jar began to be performed outside the
students’ community and has now been performed more than 200 times in
the United States, Canada, and Poland. It has even been broadcast over
radio and television. (For the play’s current schedule, visit the Life in a Jar Web site.)

At
every performance, money was collected in a jar, which was donated to
Sendler and other Polish rescuers for their care. According to the Los Angeles Times,
they raised enough money to move the then-ailing Sendler into a
Catholic nursing home with round-the-clock care. The students, and the
teacher who assigned them the initial project, started the Life in a Jar Foundation, which raised money to help pay for medical expenses and other needs of Holocaust rescuers.

Over
the years, the girls exchanged letters with Sendler. At one point, she
wrote them, “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 girls.”

With the
attention came awards. Here she is receiving the Order of the White Eagle,
Poland’s highest distinction, in Warsaw, in 2003.

In 2007, she
was nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. President Lech
Kaczynski announced the unanimous resolution to honor her for rescuing
“the most defenseless victims of the Nazi ideology: the Jewish
children.” He referred to her as a “great heroine who can be justly
named for the Nobel Peace Prize. She deserves great respect from our
whole nation.”

Irene Sendler was the last living member of her
group of rescuers. Her passing was noted in newspapers around the
world. She is survived by a daughter and a granddaughter.

Update: CBS aired The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, a Hallmark Hall of Fame special, on Sunday April 19, 9:00 pm ET. Anna Paquin plays Irena Sendler in this movie based on the authorized biography of the heroine, Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Irena Sendler Story, by Anna Mieszkowska, published in 2005.