The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler is a 2009 movie.
The film is based on the life of Irena Sendler, who smuggled 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto and saved them. Irena and her fellow social workers pose as nurses and get the children out in various ways. It shows the reluctance of some families to give up the children and the enormous tension people lived under in the ghetto, as life gets steadily worse.
Provides examples of:
- The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: In Irena and her friends. Also, the teacher who stays with his students as they get taken away, knowing very well he would die.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Irena and Stefan used to be class mates.
- Code Name: After Irena gets caught and escapes, she lived the rest of the war under a false name.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Irena and Stefania when they were caught.
- The Gestapo: Whom they most fear.
- Les Collaborateurs: Downplayed with Michal. Jasio accuses him of this, but he does it to protect his son. He knows what Irena is doing and does not betray her.
- During the War: Set in World War II
- Establishing Character Moment: In the opening scene driver Piotr smiles at Irena and then hands some bread to children in the ghetto. He will later help Irena getting children out of the ghetto. Irena is also shown offering bread to two children in the same scene.
- Maria immediately makes it clear that she doesn't know why she wouldn't help the Jewish people in the ghetto. She becomes one of Irena's staunchest allies.
- The Famine: 2612 calories per day for Germans, 699 calories per day for Poles, 300 calories for residants of the ghetto.
- Final Solution: The ghetto is already horrible, but even many of the people within think it's the final stage of what can be done to them. They're horribly wrong. Also the reason why the Nazis don't care much about the people dying there.
- A Friend in Need: Eva calls Irena her dearest friend. With reason, as she gives the food and clothes, and also saves Eva's daughter.
- Friendly Enemy: There is a mention of a few Germans warning about the death camps.
- Friend to All Children: If ever there was one.
- From Bad to Worse: It is difficult to survive in the ghetto, but worse is to come.
- Good Shepherd: Several priests help the people in the ghetto and getting children to safity.
- The Hero: Irena and her friends are true, real-life heroes.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: One of the ways they save children is by cooly walking through a court house filled with Germans.
- Hide Your Otherness: Children learn catholic prayers to help pass as Poles. Irena and Stephania also braid the hair of a girl with long black hair and make her wear a hat. Irena also tells Josia to wear a hat and to learn how to cross himself.
- I Should Have Been Better: When the deportations start, Irena can't do anything for the orphans being led away. She despairs when talking to her mother about not having been able to do anything.
- La Résistance: A resistance that focusses on saving people instead of sabotaging, but isn't any less brave because of it.
- Road Block: When Piotr, Stephania, Irena and Jewish boy run into a road block, Irena and the boy slip out of the vehicle through the back.
- The Stoic: Irena stays cool under pressure. Even when she walks with a Jewish child through the court house and a German starts talking to them, she smiles and jokes back.
- Venturous Smuggler: Jasio. He does it to help sick, old people.
