Irena's Jars of Secrets

Review
By Hazel Rochman, Booklist

…Some thoughts, feelings, and dialogue are fictionalized, but the basic facts of the gripping stories are true, and the dramatic artwork shows how children were smuggled to safety in baskets, tool chests, suitcases, and more. Betrayed, Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo, but she kept her silence, even under torture. The title refers to her promise to keep records of the rescued children and reunite families, and she buried jars with her notes. After the war, she did dig up the records, but though most of the children had survived, nearly all their parents had not. A long afterword closes this important addition to the Holocaust curriculum.