HAMPDEN, Maine — The story of how one Catholic Polish woman bravely stood against the deadly reign of the Nazis in Poland during World War II and saved thousands of Jewish children from certain death was told in two performances Sunday of “Life in a Jar” at Hampden Academy.
“This is an empowering story about how one person can change the world,” producer Dr. Allison Berube of Hampden said Sunday morning.
Irena Krzyzanowska Sendler was a social worker in Warsaw during World War II and is credited with saving some 2,500 Jewish children from the hands of the Nazis, who created the Warsaw ghetto to segregate the Jews. The Nazis burned the ghetto down in April 1943 and killed all the residents or sent them to concentration camps.
Sendler led a team of 20 who entered the ghetto under the guise that they were inspecting sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, and smuggled out the children, sometimes wrapped up as packages, to live with local Catholics. In hopes that the children would be reunited with their families, Sendler recorded their names and the list was buried in a jar for safekeeping.
She never considered herself a heroine even though she risked her life, Berube said.
“Like any story, there is more to it than you think,” the producer said. “The government of Poland, after the war, became communist. They labeled Irena Sendler as a radical and kind of treated her like a third-class citizen.”
Sendler was caught by the Nazis, who broke both her feet and legs, leaving her permanently disabled, but she never revealed the names of those who helped her.
A third performance, for RSU 22 students only, is Monday and should be inspirational to area youngsters, because Sendler’s story might have remained hidden in the history books if it hadn’t been for three Kansas middle school students who wrote the play about her in 1999 as part of a history project that put her in the spotlight.
Sendler, who was 89 at the time, was then honored by the nations of both Israel and Poland and in 2007 was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She died in May 2008 at the age of 98.
“One of the three original kids who wrote the play 16 years ago is here with us and the history teacher who challenged the girls [to do the project] is actually the director of the play,” said Berube, a physical therapist who spent 16 years working with special needs children within the RSU 22 school district.
“This is an international story about courage in a time of war,” she said. “They just got done doing performances in England and Japan. It has really been incredible. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
A question-and-answer period will be held after each performance with the seven-member volunteer cast from Kansas. The show is designed for those age 12 and older, and while it was free, donations were taken at the door to support the Life in a Jar — Irena Sendler Project.
The play was performed in Falmouth High School last year, and the next performance is scheduled March at the White Theatre at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas.