A city that survived its own death

I spotted this image in a video clip of Warsaw soccer fans paying tribute to the courage and valor of their descendants recently. Given what that city endured in World War II, I found it very moving.

The Nazis bombed Warsaw mercilessly in the opening weeks of World War II in September 1939, badly damaging the beautiful city steeped in history. But it didn't end there.

The Nazis decided to eliminate all Jews in Warsaw - first by herding them into a "ghetto," then systematically shipping them to extermination camps. The Jews eventually fought back, however, in what became known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.


The Polish resistance group Zegota worked tirelessly to rescue Jewish children from the ghetto. Irena Sendler recognized that the children would be killed if they weren't smuggled out of the ghetto, so she devised an elaborate system to extricate as many children as she could.

Her remarkable efforts saved 2,500 children until she was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943. She endured brutal torture without giving any details of the rescue network and was condemned to death - surviving only because the Zegota bribed a guard to set her free just before her execution.

Her story remained largely unknown because Poland spent decades behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union wanted no one who was not Russian or a Communist to be portrayed in heroic fashion. It wasn't until after the Iron Curtain fell that a group of students from a small Kansas high school spotted her name in a magazine article while looking for a project to enter in the National History Day competition.

The rest, as they say, is history. I'll let this documentary tell the rest of the story.



A bit of a disclaimer here: I was assigned to write a story about how Kansas schools fared at the National History Day competition in Washington in 2000. Uniontown didn't win, but as a state historical society official talked to me about "Life in a Jar," I wanted to learn more. I talked my editors into letting me do a story about the students and the project. When I spoke to Elizabeth and Megan and Sabrina, they told me they would do a couple more performances of the play for friends and relatives and then tuck it away, changed forever by that brave woman in Poland.

But my story was picked up by the Associated Press and received wide distribution, prompting numerous requests for performances. Soon, they were doing the play at a synagogue in Kansas City (mentioned in the above documentary).

Their trip to Poland to see Irena became national news there, coming just as the country was wrestling with painful revelations about natives collaborating with Nazi atrocities. Irena became a hero they - and the world - could embrace. Her story of selfless bravery and indomitable courage was timeless and universal.

I would write several more stories about the "Sendler Girls," as I came to call them. This was one of my favorites.

The reporter who normally writes stories touching on history for the Eagle was gone that day in 2000 when my editors wanted a short story about how Kansas schools fared at National History Day, so it was given to me because they knew I love history. I considered it a routine assignment....until I heard about Irena and "Life in a Jar."

It still amazes me when I think about how much happened after that. But Irena and her "girls" deserve all the credit. Heaven knows the world needs the inspiration of their example.

The power of a father's words

The remarkable story of Irena Sendler has its roots in some advice her father gave her when she was a child: If someone is drowning, you must jump in and save them - even if you can't swim yourself.

With that in the back of her mind, she would go on to save 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto in World War II:



All fueled by words her father shared with her.

It's a powerful example of the impact fathers can have on the lives of their children.

Happy Father's Day to all fathers around the world.

Change one life, change the world

I wasn't even supposed to write about them.

I was asked to write about Kansas high school students who placed in the 2000 National History Day competition in Washington, D.C. Four girls from Uniontown High School flubbed so many lines that they didn't place in the competition.

But their play, "Life in a Jar," still turned heads. It was about Irena Sendler, a Catholic who led the efforts to save the lives of an estimated 2,500 children in Warsaw before she was captured by the Nazis in World War II. They were interviewed on CNN, and were invited to perform the play in New York for the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.

"A Catholic woman being discovered by Protestant kids who saved Jewish children," their history teacher, Norm Conard, would tell me later. "If this is not a story for the ages, I don't know what is."

I wrote a short piece about the schools that placed in the competition, but told my editors, "The real story is these kids from Uniontown." I talked them into letting me do a story on the students, who had discovered Sendler was still alive and based much of their play on her letters to them. The students were gracious to me, happy to tell Irena's story one more time. They admitted they were likely going to perform the play only a couple more times for family and friends, then tuck it away in their scrapbooks.

After my story ran, their phone began to ring with requests to see the play. Stories in the Kansas City Star and elsewhere brought even more requests. A performance of the play in Kansas City so inspired one man that he raised the money to send the cast, their teacher and family members to meet Irena in 2001. Their visit was national news in Poland, where Irena's efforts had been buried by a Communist regime that considered her subversive. When her work during the war became public, she became a national hero.

The original students who put together "Life in a Jar" have all graduated from college and are now married, but the play continues to be performed by Uniontown students. It's been performed more than 270 times in the U.S., Canada and Poland.

On Sunday night, "Life in a Jar" achieves another milestone: "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler," a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, will air on CBS. I'll be in Norman for a violent weather conference, so I won't be able to watch it. But I've got my VCR programmed, and I'll be eager to see it upon my return.

I'm so proud of those students and their teacher, and by how deeply Irena's story has touched the tens of thousands of people who have seen "Life in a Jar."

Sadly, Irena didn't live to witness this latest milestone. She died last May 12 in Warsaw at the age of 98.

Only days before her death, she was visited by her beloved Uniontown students one last time. She told them, “You have changed Poland, you have changed the United States, you have changed the world. I love you very, very much."

Anyone who thinks one person can't make a difference in the world needs merely to read about Irena Sendler...and a few students from Uniontown.