Life in a Jar - The Story of Irena Sendler

Bangor, Maine - The dramatic production "Life in a Jar - The story of Irena Sendler" is coming to the Bangor area this fall. Comprised of a seven-member volunteer cast from Kansas, this traveling stage production re-tells the story of Irena Sendler.  For 100 days in  1942 this young, heroic Polish Catholic social worker combed the war-ravaged Warsaw Ghetto, risking her life to save 2,500 Polish Jewish children from the Nazi death camps.

The production will be staged on November 8 at the Hampden Academy Performing Arts Center. There will be performances at 1:00 and 5:00 p.m.

There is no admission charge, but donations will be accepted to benefit the Life in a Jar Foundation, which seeks to spread the story of this heroic woman.

Sendler convinced countless Jewish parents and grandparents into making an agonizing, heart-rending decision -- to relinquish their children to her in order that she might secret them away to a safe place, lest they die in the Ghetto or in the death camps. Many of these parents knew that the Nazis were coming to take them all away, and their best hope in at least saving their children was to give them up to Sendler -- knowing full-well they might never see them again.

Sendler smuggled the kids and babies out to safe convents, orphanages and adoptive homes, often hiding them in coffins or boxes, risking her life in the process.  She and her network made lists of the childrens' real names and put the lists in jars, then buried the jars in a garden, so that someday she could dig them up and find the children to tell them of their real identity.

Her story was unearthed in 1999, as a result of a group of Kansas school students' work on a year-long National History Days project.  It has been re-told in a bestselling book and in a Hallmark Hall of Fame T.V. motion picture.

Sendler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. She died in 2008.