By RAY WEISS, Staff writer
ORMOND BEACH -- It was a chapter of the Holocaust that remained buried for decades like the jars in Irena Sendler's backyard.
She could have turned her back like so many others in Warsaw, Poland, as Jewish neighbors were forced from their homes and ultimately sent to death camps. She was Catholic.
But Sendler, a social worker, chose a different path, organizing and leading a rescue network that saved 2,500 Jewish children, while risking her own life.
Sendler's story of courage and commitment went mostly untold until 1999, when four rural Kansas high school students found an old magazine clipping and delved further into Sendler's World War II heroics for a class project, a short play.
That play is making its way to Ormond Beach this week.
What the high school girls uncovered was a feisty and focused woman who defied the Nazis and moved children out of the deadly Warsaw Ghetto and into the safety of convents, orphanages and the homes of Polish families -- surrogate mothers and fathers who were non-Jews.
Sendler was captured in 1943 by the Gestapo, tortured and her feet and legs were fractured. She was sentenced to death but a bribed guard helped her escape right before her execution. She remained in hiding until the war ended.
When peace arrived, there were no happy reunions between the children and their Jewish parents. All the adults had been murdered, the vast majority at the Treblinka death camp.
But Sendler had preserved the family history for some of the children by burying jars with their names and information in her yard.
The Kansas girls' play was called "Life in a Jar," and last year a TV movie on Sendler's life aired. Meanwhile, the play continues to be performed throughout the world, and Tuesday night at 7, "Life in a Jar" comes to the Ormond Beach Performing Arts Center, sponsored through the Endowment Fund of the Jewish Federation of Volusia and Flagler Counties. Admission is free.
Sendler's life was no easier after the war. In communist Poland, she was branded a subversive. She married, raised two children of her own and lived a quiet life.
"Without the project, she wouldn't have been known by the world," said Norm Conard, the high school girls' 1999 history teacher and current head of the Lowell Milken Education Center in Kansas, which produces other projects dealing with social issues. "Her story made international news in 2001 when we went to Poland. And it just continued."
Sendler died two years ago. Her 100th birthday would have been Feb. 15. In 2007, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, won that year by Al Gore.
Conard and cast members met Sendler several times, and were always impressed by her spunk and spirit, reflected in her engaging eyes.
"You could see how she was forceful as a young person," he recalled. "She had a great love for people, especially kids."
Sendler's work lives on in "Life in a Jar," which will soon celebrate its 300th performance. Originally, the play ran just nine minutes. It's now about 40, and is followed by film clips and a question-and-answer session.
"The play can be done by any school in the world. It's not hard to replicate. But no professional acting troops," Conard said. "On March 4, it's being done in Wasilla, Alaska (hometown of Sarah Palin)."
Gloria Max, who heads the local Jewish Federation, said the play came to her attention about three years ago, and took this long to book because of its popularity.
"I am praying that it has a huge impact on all who see it, and that we all choose courage in the challenges of life," Max said. "She was a fantastic woman who helped save 2,500 children. It did not matter that they were not of her faith. There weren't a lot of people like her."
The original cast of "Life in a Jar" still performs from time to time -- all but Megan Felt, one of the former Kansas schoolgirls. She plays Sendler at every performance, all these years later. Sendler is much more than a character. The two women developed a deep bond from the time they met, as strong as a girl and her grandmother.
"This definitely has become a passion of mine. I cannot imagine it not being part of my life. It's become a part of who I am," said Felt, who is expecting her first child. "In 2006, when my mother died, Irena helped me through that time."
Felt said Sendler experienced frequent nightmares in her life that had a consistent theme: "Did I do enough?"
The answer for Felt comes in each performance of the play, when another audience learns about an everyday Polish woman's fight against injustice that resulted in saving 2,500 lives.
"My goal is to make her story known, especially with children," she said. "I want them to know the power one person has in changing the world, even if it's just a little. That we can affect the lives of others."
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