Can You Imagine This Story.......

janelle

CAN YOU IMAGINE THIS STORY.......

A Lady Named Irena

There recently was a death of a 98 year old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ulterior motive...

She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family.

Most of course had been gassed.

Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted.

Last year Irena was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize....

She LOST.

Al Gore won, for doing a slide show on Global Warming.

janelle

Teen Suffers From ‘Climate Change Delusion’

Psychiatrists have detected the first case of “climate change delusion” — a 17-year-old driven to apocalyptic visions by global warming fears.

Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, said this delusion was a “previously unreported phenomenon.”

They noted: “A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also had visions of apocalyptic events.

“The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies.”

Andrew Bolt writes in Australia’s Herald Sun, “Never mind the poor boy, who became too terrified even to drink. What’s scarier is that people in charge of our government seem to suffer from this ‘climate change delusion’ too.”

mesue

Okay a real shocker, I think Irena should have won the nobel prize. She put her life on the line for what she believed was the right thing to do, Al Gore however can't even reduce his consumption of fossil fuel to below normal standards, his home is using over 20 times this number, last I heard.

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Ignorance is bliss but the question is can we afford it?

dangerousfem

wow.. is that story true? Sad...that a true hero would be beat out by theory.. speculation, and fear mongering..

and before anyone jumps on me.. that is mho..

__________________
I'm not from the south...but I got here as fast as I could!

ElleGee

Snopes says it's true *nod

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/sendler.asp

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janelle

http://www.irenasendler.org


Students from rural Kansas, discover a Catholic woman, who saved Jewish children. Few had heard of Irena Sendlerowa in 1999, now after 250 presentations of Life in a Jar, a web site with huge usage and world-wide media attention, Irena is known to the world. How did this beautiful story develop? Read below for the answers.

In the fall of 1999, Mr. Conard encouraged four students to work on a year long National History Day project which would among other things; extend the boundaries of the classroom to families in the community, contribute to history learning, teach respect and tolerance, and meet our classroom motto, “He who changes one person, changes the world entire”.

Three ninth grade girls, Megan Stewart, Elizabeth Cambers, and Jessica Shelton, and an eleventh grade girl, Sabrina Coons, accepted the challenge and decided to enter their project in the National History Day program. Mr. Conard showed them a short clipping from a March 1994 issue of News and World Report, which said, 'Irena Sendler saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942-43'. He told the girls the article might be a typographical error, since he had not heard of this woman or story. The students began their research and looked for primary and secondary sources throughout the year.

They found that Irena Sendler, as a non-Jewish social worker, had gone into the Warsaw Ghetto, talked Jewish parents and grandparents out of their children, rightly saying that all were going to die in the Ghetto or in death camps, taking the children past the Nazi guards or using one of the many means of escape from the Ghetto-the old courthouse for example, and then adopting them into the homes of Polish families or hiding them in convents and orphanages. She made lists of the children's real names and put the lists in jars, then buried the jars in a garden, so that someday she could dig up the jars and find the children to tell them of their real identity.

The Nazi's captured her and she was beaten severely, but the Polish underground bribed a guard to release her, and she entered into hiding. The students wrote a performance (Life in a Jar) in which they portrayed the life of Irena Sendler. They have performed this program for numerous clubs and civic groups in the community, around the state of Kansas, all over North America and in Europe (250 presentations as of November 2008). The community of Uniontown has little diversity and no Jewish students in the school district. The community was inspired by the project and sponsored an Irena Sendler Day. The students began to search for the final resting place of Irena and discovered she was still alive and living in Warsaw, Poland. Irena's story was unknown world-wide, even though she has received esteemed recognition from Yad Vashem in the 1960's and support from the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous in New York City. Forty-five years of communism had buried her story, even in her own country.

From that time on they would take a jar to every performance and collect fund for Irena and other Polish rescuers. (They call their performance, Life in a Jar) The significance of this project really started to grow with many numerous contacts. These contacts assisted the girls in sending the funds to Poland for the care of Irena and of other rescuers. The girls wrote Irena and she wrote dozens of deeply meaningful letters to them, with such comments as, "my emotion is being shadowed by the fact that my co-workers have all passed on, and these honors fall to me. I can't find words to thank you, for my own country and the world to know of the bravery of rescuers. Before the day you had written Life in a Jar, the world did not know our story, your performance and work is continuing the effort I started over fifty years ago, you are my dearly beloved girls."

They discovered a Polish student, Anna Karasinska, at a local college and she began to translate for them. They made a collection of the letters and have shared these documents with universities, historical societies, and the Chicago and New York City Jewish Foundations for the Righteous. Their cause for Irena Sendler became a national cause; they had rediscovered this courageous woman. The girls appeared on C-SPAN, National Public Radio, CBS, CNN, the Today Show, in numerous newspaper articles, including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and New York Times, and magazine articles, such as Ladies Home Journal and Guidepost. They were invited to perform in Washington, D.C. and before a Jewish foundation in New York City. They have become knowledgeable on subjects such as the Holocaust, World War II, and the Polish Underground. At least twenty colleges and universities have been using their letters from Irena and their project information in their curriculum.

Great emotion pours out of the audience during their presentation. They have literally taken our class motto and brought it to life. They regularly write on their homework papers such notes as, "I'm changing the world" and "Irena's story must be told". The three girls had all experienced great emotional situations in life, as had later members of the project. Megan's (Megan portrays Irena) mother was forty and was seriously ill with cancer, she passed away in June of 2006. Sabrina's mother also passed on during the years of the project.

The four students continued to dream of visiting Warsaw, interviewing Irena, surviving children, and others connected to this story. In January of 2001 they performed before a large school district in a city about 100 miles from our school. A Jewish educator and businessman saw the performance and asked to have lunch with us that day. He told the girls he would raise the money and send them to Warsaw, if they would go that spring (Irena was 91 and in poor health) and bring back her story. The man raised the money in twenty-four hours.

janelle

On May 22, 2001, Mr. Conard traveled with four students, several parents (Bill and Phyllis Cambers, Debra Stewart and a local patron), plus his wife Karen, to Warsaw, Poland. They spent time with Irena Sendler and then extended the boundaries of the classroom to the world. The Polish organization for the Children of the Holocaust arranged a meeting between the rescuers and the children saved, this was the first such meeting in many years. They also met a famous Polish poet who was saved by Irena, and an author of a well known memoir of the Holocaust who called the students rescuers of the rescuer; The Polish press made this story international news. Irena's story was finally reaching others. The students were called "rescuer's, rescuers of Irena's story." by one of the children Irena saved.

The group met Elzbieta Ficowska and heard her beautiful story of being rescued by Irena at the age of 5 months, carried out in a carpenter's box. A great circle of Polish friends have aided the project in many ways.

In 2002 the founders of the project and new students traveled to Poland with Mr. Conard. They interviewed 24 people connected to Irena and her story, plus visited with Irena on several occasions. They also visited Treblinka and retraced Irena's steps in the Warsaw Ghetto. The story of Irena Sendler continues to expand, continues to inspire. Irena had made false documents for people in the Warsaw area from 1939 to 1942, helping save many, BEFORE she joined the underground Zegota and started saving children. In fact, Irena's life has been one of standing up for others. Her father was an inspiration for serving the world. Irena wants us to mention that ten others were under her guidance in saving children from the Ghetto, and a number of others were helping outside the Ghetto.

With this project the students (twelve are now working on the project-see the Sendler family page--including Travis Stewart, and Jaime Walker, who is now portraying Mrs. Rosner) are extending the classroom into the world community in many ways, such as; publishing the interviews, performing before larger audiences, sharing letters of Irena with students and educators, (copies have been requested and sent to over 250 schools) and interviews with local and national press. The students have been contacted by many across the country about a possible book or screenplay. This project has created ongoing interactive communication with families in our community and communities across the country. This web site can also reach Mr. Conard and the students.

Many parents are involved in the project. A lady in the community has organized an Irena Sendler day, and another has organized an Irena Sendler week. The students continue to perform in front of local churches, civic groups and clubs. Life in a Jar has been presented in a number of states and on two summer tours. In November of 2004 and February of 2007, the Milken Family Foundation sponsored Life in a Jar in a series of presentations in Los Angeles. Plus the MFF produced a DVD of the play-see the 'Order DVD' link at the top of the web site. The DVD has been placed in over 900 schools in the U.S. and around the world. Also, a teachers/classroom study guide has been produced by the Lowell Milken Center, to accompany the DVD.

The Jewish community in Kansas City has reached out in a powerful way to involve itself with the project. The community as a whole has adopted the project, and this courageous woman, as a part of the family. We list the Jacobson's, Krigel's and Isenberg's as families who have assisted in so many ways. Howard and Ro Jacobson established a scholarship fund for Uniontown students who needed help with college.

The story of Irena Sendler is spreading and spreading. Over 1,500 media outlets have presented articles about the Kansas kids and the Polish heroine. As child survivor, Renata Zajdman, a close friend of the project, says, "the children of Kansas put Irena's story on the map."

In 2005, the group again traveled to Poland for presentations of Life in a Jar. You may view the 'news section' of this web site for information on that trip. An international Irena Sendler award was started in 2006. Irena was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Schools have been named after her and a book in Polish and German has been printed.

Irena passed away on May 12, 2008. She was buried in a Warsaw, Poland cemetery. Her family and many of the rescued children continue to tell her story of courage and valor. The Life in a Jar students continue to share her legacy through the play, this web site, through schools and study guides, and world media.

This project has allowed these students to reach out and change the world.

dangerousfem

wow.. its nice to hear that goodness and love still exist in some people... in a time when all we hear is the bad

__________________
I'm not from the south...but I got here as fast as I could!

jbbarn

Hey come on you guys! This lady only saved a bunch of kids.Albert Gore is trying to save the world...one ugly flourescent bulb at a time! Let's keep our priorities straight.