IRENA’S JARS OF SECRETS Irena’s Jars of Secrets by Marcia Vaughan tells the true story of a Polish social worker, Irena Sendler. She was raised to value the importance of helping others who needed assistance, and she saw a need in the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust. As a social worker, she was allowed access into the ghetto, and she was able to come up with clever ways to smuggle children out before they were sent to a death camp. She hid children under stretchers and floorboards in an ambulance, carried babies in baskets, and smuggled children through the sewers. She was eventually caught and sentenced to death, but she managed to escape and continue helping to save children. She managed to keep all of their names and new identities safely buried in a jar under an old apple tree. She had saved over 2,500 children and kept their identities a secret by the end of the war. In 2007, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. This led to some of the children she had saved recognizing her face and contacting her about how she saved their lives. Furthermore, she spent the last years of her life in a nursing home under the care of a woman who had been smuggled out of the ghetto as a baby. After providing a brief explanation of Germany’s environment during Adolf Hitler’s regime, the text discusses Irena’s motivation to help those who were suffering: “Irena, now a social worker, remembered her father’s words from many years ago. The Jewish people are drowning, she thought; and she knew in her heart that she had to help them” (Vaughan 6). This desire to help people shows the softer face of the Holocaust: where humans acted against hatred and evil. When Irena was captured, she was beaten and tortured for information on the children, but she maintained her silence in order to protect “the children, the people who sheltered them, and those who assisted her” from being killed (Vaughan 21). Even when sentenced to die, she felt peace knowing that others would live because of her actions. However, Irena was freed due to a bribe from the organization she worked with to save children. Despite her actions, she did not consider herself a hero: “Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers...is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory” (Vaughan 28). This text is about the actual events of the Holocaust; however, it is not a piece showing disgusting actions and despair. It reflects helpfulness, kindness, and hope; it is an example of virtue in an unimaginably horrible situation. Irena Sendler acted selflessly and courageously to save the lives of innocent children by putting her own life in danger countless times. This illustrated book provides a less pessimistic outlook on life and the Holocaust; it encourages young learners to look for the kindness and compassion of people like Irena Sendler when times are extremely rough. This way of framing the Holocaust encourages children to see the best; this is a story of a courageous young woman who thought of others first, not the story of a world leader who through fear and intimidation committed genocide. PROFESSOR SPANNER “Professor Spanner” is a short story included in Medallions by Zofia Nałkowska.
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It tells the story of the testimony of people who worked with Doctor Spanner during a trial where they examine several atrocities that were committed under the charge of this man. They tell of how they used dead bodies of Nazi victims: separating flesh from bone to produce skeletons for universities as well as making soap from the fat of deceased humans. Assistants were to follow the instructions from a “manual” provided by the doctor for creating the products. This text is far more explicit in discussing how people were harmed by the Holocaust or for simply being different than Irena’s Jars of Secrets or “The Sneetches” and is not age-appropriate for children who are first learning about the Holocaust. This text illustrates that, even after death, denigration did not stop for the victims of the Holocaust. The work mentions that cadavers “reposed in long, concrete, sarcophagus-like basins...stacked one on top of the other—arms
It tells the story of the testimony of people who worked with Doctor Spanner during a trial where they examine several atrocities that were committed under the charge of this man. They tell of how they used dead bodies of Nazi victims: separating flesh from bone to produce skeletons for universities as well as making soap from the fat of deceased humans. Assistants were to follow the instructions from a “manual” provided by the doctor for creating the products. This text is far more explicit in discussing how people were harmed by the Holocaust or for simply being different than Irena’s Jars of Secrets or “The Sneetches” and is not age-appropriate for children who are first learning about the Holocaust. This text illustrates that, even after death, denigration did not stop for the victims of the Holocaust. The work mentions that cadavers “reposed in long, concrete, sarcophagus-like basins...stacked one on top of the other—arms