THE COURAGEOUS HEART OF IRENA SENDLER

US, 2009, 95 minutes, Colour.
Anna Paquin, Marcia Gay Harden, Goran Visnjic, Paul Freeman.
Directed by John Kent Harrison.

This film, made for television by the Hallmark channel, is based on a book by Anna Mieszkowska, Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Story of Irena Sendler.

Irena Sendler was a young woman in Warsaw at the outbreak of World War Two. She worked for the city council. When the ghetto was established, she was able to enter in and out, befriending many of the Jewish families, helping with food and with other support. She formed a band of co-workers amongst the Poles, Catholic Poles, some of whom did not want to join but others who were prepared to give their lives.

Ultimately, she was able to smuggle out babies and children from the ghetto and place them in foster families during the war and in some convents. She was helped by the local parish priest.

Anna Paquin (Oscar for The Piano, popular in the television series True Blood) is strong and dignified as Irena Sendler. Marcia Gay Harden gives a solid performance as her invalid mother who supports her daughter. Goran Visnjic plays a smuggler who helps her with the children – the man that Irena Sendler married after World War Two.

The film is a variation on the theme of help to Jews during World War Two, best known, of course, through Thomas Keneally’s book, Schindler’s Ark, and Steven Spielberg’s film, Schindler’s List.

The film recreates the ghetto, in the manner of such films as Roman Polanski’s The Pianist.

The film was directed by John Harrison Kent, a prolific director of television films including the biography of John Paul II with Jon Voight and Cary Elwes, and the biography of Lois and Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story.

1. The film as a drama for a home audience, wider audience?

2. The background of the Holocaust, memories of the Holocaust, films about the Holocaust? Films about Poland, the Warsaw ghetto? The plight of the Jews? The transportation to the concentration camps? The help from the Poles?

3. The anti-Semitism in Poland? Catholic attitudes towards the Jews? An example of Jewish-Catholic? collaboration?

4. The tribute to Irena, the 2500 children she saved? The appearance of the actual Irena at the end of the film, her memories, her comments on what had happened?

5. Irena as young, her dead father being a doctor who helped others, her mother and her illness, confined to home, Irena’s care for her mother, the doctor’s visits? The discussions with her mother, her mother not wanting to pressurise her, explaining free will and choices? Her working for the city? Her being able to enter the ghetto, becoming friends, the particular family, Karoline? Her commitment to the work, forming the group, some of the young women not wanting to join, their fears? Seeing the orphans, giving them food, the boy and his death? The young boy in the baker shop, the customers angry and identifying him as a Jew? Her teaching him the sign of the cross? Meeting him later in the ghetto, trying to organise his escape, his father as a Jewish guard, her promise to help? His helping with the escape routes? Her meeting Stefan, his help? The information that she later married him?

6. The local priest, concern, his help? Contact with Stefan, the orphans? The smuggling of potatoes? The various contacts in the city, their help in providing drivers, vehicles, escape routes?

7. The range of helpers, the women, dressing as nurses? The doctor and his support? The anonymous man in the shops, evading Nazi inquiries? Providing the driver? The driver, his strength, his concern? The strong involvement and work?

8. The children, the orphans in the street, the children staying with Irena’s mother, knitting them clothes, supplying food? Play and games?

9. The Jewish family, Irena and her friendship, the Seder supper? The meeting, those speaking for the evacuation of the children, the rabbi against? Irena and her speech? The talk and rumours about the concentration camps? The transportation of the Jews from the Lodz ghetto? The visualising of the trains, the people going on them? Knowing that there were no accommodation quarters – extinction? The mother and her intervention against the rabbi? Karoline, her personality, singing and dance, her lamenting why she was a Jew? The son arriving, his telling the truth and giving the facts about the transportations? The decisions?

10. The collage of escapes, the children, the various routes? The dangers? Hiding, the SS?

11. The apprehensiveness of the Jews about the Polish families, the possibilities of conversion? The hard citizens in the shops? Their fears, the law? The contrast with the convent and the nuns welcoming the children?

12. The young boy in the shop, his father as a guard, his scrounging in the streets, his father helping Irena, their both going onto the train, the floor of the carriage, making his son escape?

13. Irena keeping the lists and information for families to recover their children after the war? The postscript with the difficulties of the foster parents and their attachment to the children and surrendering them to their original families?

14. Irena being arrested, interrogated, the beating of her feet, the other people in the cells, the torture, Irena holding steadfast? The women being taken out, lined against the wall and shot? The guard urging Irena to escape?

15. Irena’s mother, with the doctor, helping Irena recover? The contact with Stefan, her escape from Poland? Meeting Stefan after the war?

16. The perennial impact of these films – lest people forget?