Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

Liz, Sabrina, and Megan begin to receive more requests to perform the play: “In the 12 years Mr. C. had been overseeing National History Day projects at Uniontown High School, Life in a Jar was the first to generate so much attention beyond the competition” (251). The girls decide to “take this project on the road” (251). Megan even jokingly suggests that they should try to travel to Poland to perform the play for Irena; however, even just a local tour stretches thin the budgets of the three girls from the low-income Uniontown school district. The group expands to meet their new needs. Jessica Shelton joins them as their road manager, and Nick Caton joins to play a male German soldier.

They continue sending letters, and money, to Irena in Poland, but “every check they sent was acknowledged with a receipt from the charitable organization or orphanage to which she immediately donated the funds” (252). Megan wonders why she won’t accept their donations, but they “only conclude that her mission had never ended” (252).

In September, Irena writes to tell them that, with the help of her friend, she was finally able to read the play, as she is no longer able to read on her own. She writes that it is impossible to fully comprehend everything that happened then “by any sane, mentally healthy or normal thinking human being” (253). She also tells them that the reason they never received an initial response was because her son, Adam, to whom their letter was directed, had passed away just before the letter was received, resolving a longstanding mystery for them. She concludes by praising and thanking the students.

At the beginning of the new school year, the girls begin to experience racist and homophobic harassment due to the play. Mr. C. reacts to each incident, but a local school board member eventually expresses his own concerns about the play due to its content and its related finances, despite having never seen it, claiming that “[i]t’s a political project that has nothing to do with the American History [Mr. C. is] supposed to be teaching” (255). However, a local businessman and prominent member of the Kansas City Jewish community, Howard Jacobson, responded by writing to the school board in support of the play and pledging to donate $1,000 per year to help offset expenses.

Throughout the fall, the girls continue to travel to perform the play despite needing to forego other obligations in order to do so. Requests for performances begin to overwhelm their schedules, and by winter, they must decline requests. Even so, they still perform trying feats, even, at one point, performing four times in one day as a favor to a friend of Mr. C.’s. This performance, however, proves to be serendipitous: another local businessman, John Shuchart, sees the performance and is so moved that he invites the girls to lunch to discuss the play. When he discovers that the girls are currently trying to raise money to take the performance to Poland, he raises the money within two days to fund their trip.

Shortly before the trip, they receive another letter from Irena. This one, however, confuses them, as she asks them never to do what she herself did. They conclude that she is trying to protect them, as a mother would.

Bozenna Gilbride, a Polish American expert on ZEGOTA living in New York, contacts the girls to give them more information about the resistance and stories about the underground movements. She had herself interviewed Irena, and she made documentaries about ZEGOTA, but “they did not enjoy a large audience, and she had been frustrated that her endeavor had fallen on deaf ears” (259). She helps them plan their trip to Poland and puts them in contact with Bieta, the girl with the silver spoon rescued by Irena.

A few weeks prior to their trip, Bozenna also puts them in touch with a young reporter for The Warsaw Voice, Marcin Fabjanski, who travels to Kansas to do a story on the girls. He tells them that he worries “that seeing too much of the dark side will turn [him] into a cynical old reporter,” but that after spending time with the students in Kansas, his “faith is renewed” (260). His piece is published two days prior to the girls’ arrival in Poland.