Movie #1351 ........................."The Courageous Heart of Irene Sendler"

Movie #1351 "The Courageous Heart of Irene Sendler" is a film I was anxious to see because for my book club we had read a book on this Polish hero who saved 2500 little kids from the Jewish ghetto during WWII.  She was part of the underground activities, convincing the parents to send their kids to safe places for them once many people were seeing the writing on the wall; i.e. Hitler would send all the ghetto people to work camps where to die --- they didn't even have barracks at places like Treblinka.  She would get the kids new identities, but she promised the parents that she would copy down there real names with their new names and bury them in a jar so they could be found in the future.  The problem was Irene got arrested and tortured, and even though a good samaritan got her to safety, she could never go back to the jars -- which became a mute point anyway, since most of the ghetto people that she didn't take to safe havens perished in the work camps.  She was truly a hero, but the information about her and the underground saviors in Poland went unrecognized for many years, since Poland was not free from oppression for many years (under the Communist rule after Hitler).  So it's just recently that her story has come to light, and this film was finally made.   It wasn't as tough as some Holocaust films I've seen (in fact, in the first hour, there are no brutal beatings or killing), but once she is taken prisoner, those scenes are tough to watch.  But the film is so darn inspiring about this woman, who was so hard on herself through the whole ordeal because she could save more ---- much like the Hacksaw Ridge hero in that film.  I would give this 4 out of 5 stars.

"THE COURAGEOUS HEART OF IRENE SENDLER"    2009

In the early days of World War II, Polish Catholic social worker Irena Sendler (Anna Paquin, in a Golden Globe-nominated turn) devises a daring plan: Disguised as nurses, she and colleagues gain access to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw and smuggle some 2,500 Jewish children to safety. John Kent Harrison directs this drama based on Sendler's real-life exploits, for which she received a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Marcia Gay Harden and Nathaniel Parker co-star.

Cast: Anna Paquin, Marcia Gay Harden, Goran Visnjic,