Sendler's List

Documentary. Part One: Four high-school girls in a small town in Kansas dramatize and play the story of a Polish woman, Irena Sendler who saved 2,500 children and infants from death in the Holocaust, and visit her at her home. Irena Sandler was a Catholic nurse and a social worker, and a member of the Polish underground Council for Aid to Jews (Żegota) that opposed the Nazis during World War II. In 1943 four months after the Warsaw ghetto was destroyed and burned to the ground, she was appointed the to direct the Zegota's care of Jewish children, and used her connections in orphanages and institutions for abandoned children to send them Jewish children. She documented coded addresses of children treated by Żegota and paid large sums of money to some of the rescuers. Although she was tortured by the Gestapo, she never revealed details identifying the children or where they were sent. She was sentenced to death and sent to prison, but underground activists managed to bribe officials and released her. After her release in February 1944, and though she knew authorities were following her, Sandler continued her work for Jews. Because of the great danger she was forced to hide. The need to act secretly kept her from, among other things, to attend her mother's funeral. In 1965, she was awarded the title of Righteous among the nations, and in 1991 received an honorary citizenship of the State of Israel. Part two: Irena's life story. Her grandfather was killed in the Polish uprising in 1860. Her grandfather died in 1917 during world War I, where he served as a doctor.