The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler
Promotional poster
Written by	John Kent Harrison Lawrence John Spagnola
Directed by	John Kent Harrison
Starring	Anna Paquin Goran Visnjic Marcia Gay Harden
Theme music composer	Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
Country of origin	United States Canada Poland
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Cameron Johann
Running time	95 minutes
Release
Original network	Hallmark Hall of Fame
Original release	April 19, 2009 (2009-04-19)

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler is a 2009 television film directed by John Kent Harrison. The film is a co-production between American and Polish companies. The teleplay by Harrison and Lawrence John Spagnola, based on the 2007 biography 'Die Mutter der Holocaust-Kinder: Irena Sendler und die geretteten Kinder aus dem Warschauer Ghetto' (DVA Dt.Verlags-Anstalt, / English translation 2010: The Mother of the Holocaust Children by Anna Mieszkowska), focuses on Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who smuggled approximately 2,500 Jewish children to safety during World War II. The Hallmark Hall of Fame production, which was filmed on location in Riga, Latvia, was broadcast by CBS on April 19, 2009, and released to DVD in Hallmark Gold Crown stores in early June of that year.

Irena Sendler (née Krzyżanowska) is a Catholic social worker who has sympathized with the Jews since her childhood, when her physician father died of typhus contracted while treating poor Jewish patients. When she initially proposes saving Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, her idea is met with skepticism by fellow workers, her parish priest, and even her own mother Janina.

Using forged identification to present herself as a nurse to guards at the entrance to the enclave where the Jewish population has been sequestered, Irena tries to convince the parents of young children to allow her to smuggle them out to safety. Many fear they will never see them again, and she assures them she will document where each child is sent to facilitate their reunion with their parents once the war is over. Others bemoan the fact their children will be raised in a faith other than their own and forget their religious beliefs and traditions, but Irena convinces them this is a small price to pay in exchange for keeping them alive.