Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

The role of history in mythmaking and representing truth is frequently addressed, often through the eyes of Mr. C., but just as often through the background of the book as a whole. Most prominently, this is evident in the contextual frame of the book: the project exists because of the National History Day competition, which celebrates the importance of history in reclaiming the past in order to learn from it. The judges of the national competition commend the girls for becoming agents of history, and therefore agents of change, and it’s hard to deny that they played this role. However, it is also true that the project was an agent of change for the girls—in particular, Liz—who grew through and because of the project. History in the abstract helped them each to better understand the difficulties of their own lives, even if those difficulties bore little resemblance to the actual events faced by Irena, et al.

The role of history is examined in a more traditional manner, as well. Mr. C. frequently wonders about the power of the play and the nature of truth within it. He does not consider the girls to be particularly strong actors or the play even to be a particularly strong play, yet recognizes that despite these deficiencies, it never fails to amaze and impress the audience. This suggests that in bringing the events to life, what’s important is the recreation and reclaiming of the events from the past. Likewise, the play is not true as a whole: mistakes are made and events changed, but that doesn’t seem to matter because the fundamental truth of the story is still present. The book is not true in the traditional sense, either—it is a work of creative nonfiction, and the author notes that much of the text was created in order to capture the feeling of the events rather than to represent the truth of them.

Similar to the role of history, the book examines the ways we do, or do not, communicate our own personal pain and tragedy. This is most prescient in the lives of the girls, as well as their families. Throughout the book, Liz wrestles with her connection with the core concept of Irena’s story: What would make a mother give her own daughter up? For Liz, this turns into questioning what made her own mother give her up. The play becomes deeply personal for Liz, which manifests itself in part in her insistence on playing Irena. However, these feelings remain unspoken throughout the book, and by the end, there is no (firm) resolution to them.

Megan and Sabrina likewise have their own unspoken pain. Megan’s mother develops cancer, yet she initially keeps this a closely guarded secret; Sabrina, too, has her own complicating issues that she keeps to herself, even as they affect the way she reads and understands the work they are doing. Yet, it is important to note that there are moments of openness, as well. Sabrina and Megan both reveal their problems eventually, and the girls all lean on one another for support at various moments.

Although this thread runs through the book, it is most concentrated in the survivors. Many of the survivors were forced to keep their pain to themselves for decades due to the repressiveness of Communist Poland following the war. After the girls visit Poland and interview survivors, they speak of the survivors’ clear need just to talk about their experiences. Yet, simultaneously, the need to keep those experiences repressed remains strong—several ensure that they are not identified by the girls, a lingering fear that cannot quite be shaken. Irena, too, expresses a dual need both to share and to deflect: she wants to share her experiences with the girls, but she frequently deflects attention from herself and ultimately chooses not to view a performance of the play, the essential reason the girls traveled to Poland in the first place. Communication of tragedy is complicated, then—a simultaneous need to share and to repress.

Most prevalent is the theme of intolerance and “the other” throughout the book. As a work about World War II, it is to be expected that the book would address intolerance through antisemitism. The framing of the book suggests that we are to use the events of the war to understand intolerance and othering in our own time, as well. The girls experience this in unique ways. Liz has her own difficult family situation, which causes her problems and makes her feel somehow other than the rest of the students at school. Sabrina’s poverty likewise creates in her a sense of otherness, which is compounded by the fact that her sister is dark-skinned. As the play becomes popular, the girls experience their own bigoted harassment in reaction, which nearly prompts a school board member to shut the production down—not out of concern for the girls. This then culminates in the events of 9/11. The inclusion of this modern-day tragedy highlights how the play, as well as Irena’s story, helps to heal the community following the attacks. There is a subtle importance of the fact that the play is not just morally uplifting, but specifically a play against intolerance, completed for a project and class against intolerance, just at a moment when America will, arguably, begin to slide into its own kind of intolerance.