Life in a Jar
Tuesday, April 7 10;00 AM & 1:00 PM
Wednesday, April 8 11:00 AM
McCutcheon High School
Presented by McCutcheon Drama Students
In 1942, Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker, risked her life to rescue Jewish children. Ultimately, 2500 Jewish children were relocated or rescued from the Warsaw ghetto by Irena and other members of her group of 25 women who called themselves the Zagota, The children were placed in homes, convents, and orphanages throughout Poland. Irena wrote the names of the rescued children on slips of paper, put the paper in glass jars, and buried the jars so that after the war the children could be reunited with their families. Irena Sendler was captured by the Gestapo and imprisoned herself, escaping only because her underground organization bribed a guard. Irena was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. She died at age ninety-eight in May of 2008.
Life in a Jar was written by three 9th graders—Megan Felt, Elizabeth Hutton, and Sabrina Murphy—under the direction of their teacher, Mr. Norm Conard, now the director of the Lowell Milken Center in Fort Scott, Kansas, an education foundation dedicated to the concept of Tikkun Olam (“repair the world”). The play, the life of Irena Sendler, and the story of the students whose school project led them to her was featured on the NBC Today Show in 2007 and on CNN. Subsequently, the Irena Sendler story has been made into a CBS Hallmark production to be released this spring, retold in a PBS film, and captured in privately produced documentaries. The Lowell Milken Center is providing the Life in a Jar script to the Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Conference free of charge. These performances are for school groups.
Websites:
Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler ProjectLowell Milken Center
