Holocaust film to be shown at YSU

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The film “In the Name of Their Mothers: The Story of Irena Sendler” will be screened at 1:30 p.m. April 25 in McKay Auditorium in the Beeghley Education Building at Youngstown State University. The screening is sponsored by the Polish Arts Club, the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation and the YSU Center for Judaic and Holocaust Studies.

The film tells the story of Irena Sendler and a group of young Polish women who risked their lives to save thousands of Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War II.

This screening will be the first in the United States since its premiere in Warsaw in February.

Mary Skinner, the director of the film, will be in Youngstown for the screening to enhance the educational experience of the program.

Skinner is the daughter of a World War II Warsaw war orphan.

“Too often, Poles are remembered as Nazi collaborators during the WWII Holocaust,” said Mary Anne Mylnarski, president of the Polish Arts Club, reminding that Poland was ravaged during the war and that three million Polish gentiles were murdered during the war.

Mylnarski said Sendler is an outstanding example of the way the majority of Poland’s citizens reached out to their countrymen from their hearts, trying to care for them in any way they could — even if it meant putting their own lives at risk.

Scott Lewis, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said he is extremely heartened that the Jewish and Polish communities are co-sponsoring this program, noting that the lessons of the Holocaust belong to all of humanity.

In 1943, Sendler was captured and tortured by the Gestapo. When she refused to reveal anything about her liaisons in the Polish Resistance, she was sentenced to death.

She was able to escape with the help of the Resistance, and the 2,500 children she had helped to hide survived the war. Many were later reunited with their Jewish families.

But for decades, they could not tell their stories. Silenced by Communist authorities in post-war Poland, many endured Soviet prisons or were forced into exile.

“The courageous and selfless acts of Irena Sendler demonstrate that even under the most adverse conditions, individuals can accomplish extraordinary things,” said Dr. Helene Sinnreich, director of Judaic and Holocaust Studies and assistant professor of history at YSU.

For more information about the film, call Aundrea Cika at (330) 646-4082.