Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler is a Polish social worker in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, a real figure whose story Dr. Brougham tells Olivia during her school research on the ghetto. Her pass lets her enter the ghetto, where 400,000 people are starving behind the walls. Defying her frightened mother and the Gestapo's death penalty, she joins a secret network of false papers and hiding places. She smuggles Jewish children out in coffins, ambulances, laundry sacks, and even a toolbox with air holes. She hides each child's real name in canning jars buried under an apple tree, so families can find each other when the war ends. Compassionate and daring, she lives by her father's rule - if someone is drowning, you jump in to save them. Her friend Stefan helps her, and she assures frightened children that God is always with them.