Movie “Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers” to air on Chicago’s WTTW
Premiere on National Holocaust Remembrance Day
Sunday, May 1st, at 9:00 p.m.
The story of Polish social worker Irena Sendler, who smuggled food into and Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland. She was eventually captured by the Gestapo and tortured after refusing to name her collaborators. The documentary includes remarks from Sendler; and archival footage and photographs. WTTW is proud to broadcast the moving story of a group of social workers, led by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Irena Sendler, who outfoxed the Nazis and saved over 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto. Twenty-nine year old Sendler saw the atrocities of the ghetto and was compelled to take action. She reached out to her most trusted colleagues and established a network of cohorts who forged identification papers and placed the children in Catholic safe houses and orphanages.
Keeping the children safe was a continuous struggle as blackmail was common and Nazi soldiers were constantly searching for Jews outside the bounds of the ghetto walls. Children suspected of being Jewish were quizzed on Catholic culture and prayer, so concealing their heritage required a complete cultural transformation. Several children who survived this ordeal give moving firsthand accounts of the feelings of confusion, resentment and abandonment that accompanied leaving their homes and assuming Catholic names and identities.
The film expertly captures the contrast between the will and character of the women of the resistance and the ever-present danger of occupied Poland. Sendler was in her late 90s when interviewed for the film, but her charisma and perseverance remain startlingly vibrant. From her brush with death while being held by the Gestapo to the continued harassment from the communist government after the war, Sendler’s nonchalant recounting of her life and works is both humbling and inspiring.
Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers directed by Mary Skinner will air after Masterpiece Classic on May 1, 2011.
[Press Release]
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