INTERVIEW

Story of a Lifetime

The Warsaw Voice No 27 (871)
July 3, 2005

Teacher Norman Conard and student Jessica Shelton from the Irena Sendler Project
Talk to Marcin Mierzejewski

- How is the project developing?

N.C.: The project in the U.S. continues to grow. The student’s website logged 1.5 million hits in a year and a half. The presentations are constant-we receive about two requests every week and are hardly able to organize 20 per year. It has an increasing impact across the U.S. People throughout the country know Irena Sendler, I think almost as well or better than in Poland, as a result of the Life in a Jar presentations. More and more people know who she is and increasing numbers of organizations are interested in seeing the play. One way this can be measured is by the students’ website (www.irenasendler.org). We thought that after a while when the news stories died down, there would be less interest in the project, but actually more and more people are asking us about the story.

- What are the main goals of the project?

J.S.: Our main goals are to share Sendler's story with the world, make her and those who saved others during the Holocaust known. We would like to see a larger foundation in the future that is able to distribute information to schools across the country on establishing a tolerance program like this one.

- Central and Eastern European history is not widely known or popular in the United States. What is so interesting in Sendler's story for young Americans?

J.S.: We study the Holocaust in American schools, but not as deeply as we might want. We want to know more about certain individuals who changed history and lives. So when we read a small article about Sendler saving 2,500 children, it interested us because we wanted to see how big a difference one person can make.

- What feedback has the project gotten in the U.S. and abroad and what are your plans?

N.C.: We receive inspirational e-mails and letters nonstop from people who say they read the story and cried and received hope for the future. The fact that students are involved also gives people a sense of hope that not only what happened in the past was right, but also what is happening now.

The project, as I said, continues to grow. Irena has a book that was published in Poland. More and more stories are being written about her. Personally, I think this story has not even come close to the impact that it will have.

- How has the Irena Sendler project changed your lives?

J.S.: The project has changed my life in so many ways. Irena taught us that if you see someone drowning, you have to jump in and save them whether you can swim or not. Her mission was to save the children. In our own lives we often see what we could do and now have the courage to do it.

- Is there any chance that Sendler's story may be filmed?

N.C.: I think so, but when that happens and how is still up in the air. This is just the beginning of the story for the students. It has grown from just a small play at a high school, which tells me as an educator that people are hungry for a story of hope. Of course, this is the story of a Polish heroine, so Polish people should feel a deep sense of satisfaction that this story is being told.

Sharing a Story With the World

The Irena Sendler Project is an initiative by a teacher at Uniontown High School in Kansas, and the students and alumni. In the fall of 1999, four students under the supervision of Norm Conard prepared a school performance Life in a Jar, based on the true story of Irena Sendler, a Pole, with whose help 2,500 Jewish children were saved from the Warsaw Ghetto. Sendler headed the Children's Department of the clandestine underground Żegota Council for Aid to Jews in Occupied Poland that, with money obtained from the Polish government in exile in London, tried to bring help to the Polish Jews murdered on a massive scale. The school performance, intended to illustrate the school's motto: "He who changes one person, changes the entire world," made a great hit. Up to now, it has had 165 showings all over the United States reviving the memory of the heroic Pole not only in America, but also all over the world, even in her homeland. Sendler, who cooperated with the London government in exile, in the postwar communist Poland was doomed to obscurity. The group of students engaged in the Irena Sendler Project were hosted in Poland for the third time May 28-June 4, meeting with their hero, who lives in Warsaw, and with representatives of the association Dzieci Holocaustu (Children of the Holocaust), associating the saved.