Movie premiere held in Fort Scott

There aren’t many world movie premieres held in southeast Kansas, but the red carpets were rolled out Wednesday at the Liberty Theatre, Fort Scott, for “The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler.”
The Hallmark Hall of Fame CBS movie, starring Oscar-winner Anna Paquin in the title role, will be broadcast on Sunday.
The film was taken from the true story of Sendler, who saved 2,500 Jewish children in Poland during World War II. Her story had been almost forgotten, until it became the basis for “Life in a Jar,” a History Day program created by Uniontown High School students Megan Stewart Felt, Sabrina Coon Murphy, Elizabeth Cambers Hutton and Jessica Shelton Ripper under the guidance of their teacher, Norm Conard.
The  name came from the fact that Sendler wrote the names of all the children she rescued on slips of paper, which she placed in glass jars and buried under an apple tree, so the children could be reunited with their birth families after the war ended.
“We were afraid that you couldn’t make a movie of this, because Irena’s story was so complex,” Conard said. “But Hallmark made it, and made it right.”
“The day after a performance of  ‘Life in a Jar’ in Kansas City I started getting telephone calls about it,” said Brad Moore, who has produced 80 movies for Hallmark. “We wanted to do the premiere here in Fort Scott, just a few miles from where the project originated. This is a terrific community.”
Numerous Hallmark dignitaries were guests at the premiere, along with Jeff Most, who produced the film and played a small role in it. He told of the 1 1/2-year struggle to get Sendler to grant the rights to make a film of her life.
“I tried to convince her that we would make a fantastic movie, but Irena wanted script approval,” he said. “Finally, I got a call saying that she would grant me the rights but would not approve any scene in which her character was making  love in the nude.”
He assured her that there would be no such scene in the film, and there isn’t, though Paquin does share several kisses with Stefan, Irena’s future husband, who was played by Goran Visnjic.
Sadly, Conard said, Stefan died from heart trouble when he was only in his 40s. “Irena’s son, Adam, died in 1999, on the very day that the ‘Life in a Jar’ project started,” he added. “Her daughter still lives in Poland.”
“Life in a Jar” continues to be performed around the nation, and the original cast members made five trips to Poland to meet with Sendler, who died in May 2008 at the age of 2008.
“Irena didn’t get to see the movie,” Conard said. “In fact, she never saw the  play of ‘Life in a Jar,’ though we did it in Poland. Her health was poor and she also told us that she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t cry all through the play.”
A gripping scene in the film depicts Irena being captured by the Gestapo and beaten on the soles of her feet in an effort to make her confess to her “crime” of smuggling Jewish children out of the ghetto and placing them with Polish families.
“Irena was on crutches or a walker for much of her life because of those injuries,” Conard said.
There were a few changes in the movie from reality, he said. For one, the film has Stefan working at an orphanage for Jewish children, which he didn’t do. “For another, the film has her working with a few helpers, and she actually had a team of 25 working with her,” Conard said.
A very special guest for the premiere was Renata Zajdman, who was saved at the age of 11 by Sendler.
“Irena lived at a time when murder was legal and rescue was a crime,” Zajdman said. “I think there are no greater heroes than the righteous. They saved me not because I was rich or smart or pretty, but because I needed to be saved.”