Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Living History

High school homework rarely becomes art, but that’s what happened after four Kansas students saw a news clipping in 1999. It mentioned Irena Sendler, a Polish woman living in Warsaw. As part of a National History Day project, the girls researched Sendler’s life, got in touch with her, and wrote a play based on her then-unchronicled past. A Catholic nurse, Sendler (pictured) saved 2500 children from Warsaw’s Jewish ghettos during the Holocaust and placed them in orphanages, foster homes, convents and other safe houses. She wrote the name and history of each child on tissue paper and buried the lists in a jar in the garden — hoping someday to dig it up, locate the children and tell them of their true identities. Life in a Jar, the ensemble’s original production, hits three Vermont towns on four consecutive days.