Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

Irena notices a new beggar in the ghetto, a girl of about 5 or 6 years old. Over a period of several days, she watches the girl deteriorate; when she is close to death, on a whim, Irenas Sendler and Schultz sneak the girl out of the ghetto, through the courthouse, to a convent sympathetic to their cause.

After helping the child escape, Irena becomes emboldened to continue helping dying orphans escape: “There was no shortage of dying orphans, and no one missed them when they were gone” (146). By the spring, Irena is helping three or four orphans per week escape the ghetto, placing them wherever they can. However, at one point, one of Irena’s couriers, Helena, is stopped by the Gestapo with one of the orphans. The orphan dies in Gensia Prison, while Helena is taken to Pawiak Prison, notorious for its brutality, for questioning. Irena is shaken; everyone knows the risks, but this is the first time one of her network was caught.

Irena immediately shuts down the network and instructs everyone involved to destroy all evidence. However, the “most damning” piece of evidence—the list of the rescued orphans’ Jewish names along with their Aryan identities—Irena and Jaga refuse to destroy, as “[e]very child deserves a name” (147). They instead decide to bury the lists in Jaga’s backyard.

Shortly after, Helena’s name appears on a list of the executed. The courthouse escape route is now compromised; the locks in the basement tunnels are all changed, and in any case, Irena puts the network into hibernation. However, the Gestapo never comes to question any of the rest of them, leading Irena to conclude that Helena either refused to give up any information or else took her own life with a cyanide capsule “before the worst of the torture began” (149).

A week after Helena’s death, the rescues resume through a variety of other means: holes in the wall, coats of men leaving on work brigades, garbage bags, the morgue wagon among corpses. Irena continues her home visits, and one day, she encounters a woman whose child is in desperate need of a wet nurse. The woman begs Irena to take her child, too. She carefully sedates and hides the child in a compartment in Antoni’s ambulance. With the help of Antoni’s new dog, trained to whine on command to cover the cries of a child, they manage to help the child escape.

In April of 1942, there is a crackdown on the underground newspapers in Poland. On April 17, 1942, the Germans seize “60 prominent Jews and [execute] them in the street. In one way or another, they were all associated with the underground press” (153). It is rumored that the SS had worked with a list provided by the Jewish Police. Reports begin to surface that Jews are being packed into cattle cars and deported; separately, people begin to hear about “the opening of a strange new camp, Treblinka, a camp without prisoners’ barracks, sixty miles northeast of Warsaw, on the rail line” (153).

Despite the rumors, the Germans continue to insist that the deported Jews are simply being relocated, and that the new camps are just transfer stations. Schmuel believes the same, and as a result, Ewa accepts the same conclusions. Ewa’s brother Adam, on the other hand, is convinced that the Germans intend to “slaughter”(154)every Jew in Poland.

Irena continues to help families evacuate their children from the ghetto. She continually reminds the families that she keeps a list of all the names so that they can be reunited after the war. In May 1942, Irena tests a new escape route on a tram that originates from the ghetto. Unfortunately, the child begins to squirm, forcing Irena off the tram early; then the family changes its mind after discovering that the child is a boy, as boys are harder to conceal. She eventually places him with the convent.

Irena continues to try to convince Ewa to leave, but Ewa refuses, telling Irena that Schmuel wants to marry her, and promises that their marriage would protect her and her family. Irena reluctantly gives her blessing. Adam, on the other hand, has moved out of their home and into a resistance house, to Ewa’s chagrin: “He’s crazy and he lives with crazy people. They put us all at risk” (158).

By July, it’s become accepted that all Jews will be deported eventually. Mass deportation pushes Irena to determine the limits of her network’s capabilities. Ewa receives word that Schmuel has information about the deportations, and Irena puts plans into motion to drastically increase the number of evacuations.

Around the same time, Irena visits a family who wants Irena to take their daughter, Bieta. She finds that parents now want guarantees for their children, something she is unable to give, aside from that if they remain in the ghetto, they “will likely die of infection or starvation” (161). This family, the Koppels, ask for one more night with Bieta. When Irena returns, they insist on sending with her a silver spoon inscribed with her name and birthdate.