<table> </table> When Holocaust rescuer Irena Sendler died last year at the age of 98, Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn of Kansas City’s New Reform Temple took issue with various obituaries paying tribute to her as the “female Oskar Schindler.” Schindler, he said, “should be called the male Irena Sendler, given that she saved many more Jews than Schindler.”It’s true — more than 2,500 children of the Warsaw Ghetto owed their lives to a Polish Catholic social worker who worked wonders right under the Nazis’ less-than-diligent gaze.If you attended the play “Life in a Jar,” which dramatized Sendler’s career as a rescuer, then you are familiar with her remarkable story. You also may be aware of the story behind “Life in a Jar” itself: In 1999, for a National History Day project, a group of students in rural Kansas were given a challenge by their teacher, Norman Conard.Conard produced a magazine article he’d clipped at the time that “Schindler’s List” was wowing moviegoers. The article claimed that there was a virtually unknown woman living in Poland who, half a century earlier, had rescued 2,500 Jews from the Nazis.Surely that was a typo, said Conard, as though daring his kids to prove him wrong.The students not only verified Sendler’s breathtaking accomplishment, they singlehandedly revived her story with a play, which has been performed hundreds of times around the world.And now there’s a movie.Anna Paquin stars in “The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler,” airing at 8 tonight on KCTV-5 as the 236th presentation of the “Hallmark Hall of Fame.” It’s a straightforward and earnest account, adapted from the book by Anna Mieszkowska, of an unfailingly moral and caring person who spirited hundreds, then thousands of children across Nazi checkpoints into the waiting arms of Catholic families.Honored for two decades after World War II, Sendler eventually slipped into obscurity, perhaps a result of her own humility. After the Kansas kids rediscovered her, Cukierkorn went to visit Sendler in 2004. He recalled her telling him to bring cookies — not for herself (she had diabetes) but to share with others at the nursing home where she lived.Nor was Sendler one to burnish her own legend. When asked if she had advice for the young people dramatizing her story, she told them to “always end your performance by saying the real heroes of the story were the Jewish parents and grandparents.” After all, they had willingly surrendered their children to her. They were ensuring that their offspring would live, but in so doing they relinquished one of the last joys they had in that doomed community of Warsaw.Goldblum joins ‘CI’At some point during the new season of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” Jeff Goldblum is going to show up and go all Jeff Goldblum on the unwitting perps.Now, for those of you who may have missed that NBC series where he played a detective who got crime-solving tips from his dead partner, let me tell you something: There are very few actors on television who can look at the ground and mumble quite as convincingly as Jeff Goldblum.As it happens, however, one of those other actors is his co-star, Vincent D’Onofrio, who kicks off the eighth(!) season for “Criminal Intent” at 8 tonight on USA Network.I know “Criminal Intent” has been compared to “Columbo,” and I suppose both Peter Falk’s raincoat savant and D’Onofrio’s shifty-eyed brooder eventually get their man in remarkably similar, allegedly “intuitive” ways. But c’mon — if Falk was the crazy uncle, D’Onofrio is the crazy cousin. Big difference.Still, I have to admit that the big lug works surprisingly well within the confines of the “CI” format. While everyone else is exerting their acting muscles to push the story line along, D’Onofrio stares into the distance and talks to himself. It’s strangely compelling.With the addition of Goldblum (and subtraction of Chris Noth’s more conventional copper), New York’s nuttiest crime-solving unit gains another member.Goldblum will make his debut as crimefighter Zack Nichols on this week’s “Criminal Intent,” when he’ll circle slowly around the suspects in the death of a rap MC until he intuits that the killer is the weirdest guy on the scene besides himself.

Posted on Sat, Apr. 18, 2009 10:15 PM

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AARON BARNHART AARON@TVBARN.COM

Holocaust rescuer inducted in ‘Hall of Fame’

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When Holocaust rescuer Irena Sendler died last year at the age of 98, Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn of Kansas City’s New Reform Temple took issue with various obituaries paying tribute to her as the “female Oskar Schindler.” Schindler, he said, “should be called the male Irena Sendler, given that she saved many more Jews than Schindler.”

It’s true — more than 2,500 children of the Warsaw Ghetto owed their lives to a Polish Catholic social worker who worked wonders right under the Nazis’ less-than-diligent gaze.

If you attended the play “Life in a Jar,” which dramatized Sendler’s career as a rescuer, then you are familiar with her remarkable story. You also may be aware of the story behind “Life in a Jar” itself: In 1999, for a National History Day project, a group of students in rural Kansas were given a challenge by their teacher, Norman Conard.

Conard produced a magazine article he’d clipped at the time that “Schindler’s List” was wowing moviegoers. The article claimed that there was a virtually unknown woman living in Poland who, half a century earlier, had rescued 2,500 Jews from the Nazis.

Surely that was a typo, said Conard, as though daring his kids to prove him wrong.

The students not only verified Sendler’s breathtaking accomplishment, they singlehandedly revived her story with a play, which has been performed hundreds of times around the world.

And now there’s a movie.

Anna Paquin stars in “The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler,” airing at 8 tonight on KCTV-5 as the 236th presentation of the “Hallmark Hall of Fame.” It’s a straightforward and earnest account, adapted from the book by Anna Mieszkowska, of an unfailingly moral and caring person who spirited hundreds, then thousands of children across Nazi checkpoints into the waiting arms of Catholic families.

Honored for two decades after World War II, Sendler eventually slipped into obscurity, perhaps a result of her own humility. After the Kansas kids rediscovered her, Cukierkorn went to visit Sendler in 2004. He recalled her telling him to bring cookies — not for herself (she had diabetes) but to share with others at the nursing home where she lived.

Nor was Sendler one to burnish her own legend. When asked if she had advice for the young people dramatizing her story, she told them to “always end your performance by saying the real heroes of the story were the Jewish parents and grandparents.” After all, they had willingly surrendered their children to her. They were ensuring that their offspring would live, but in so doing they relinquished one of the last joys they had in that doomed community of Warsaw.

Goldblum joins ‘CI’

At some point during the new season of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” Jeff Goldblum is going to show up and go all Jeff Goldblum on the unwitting perps.

Now, for those of you who may have missed that NBC series where he played a detective who got crime-solving tips from his dead partner, let me tell you something: There are very few actors on television who can look at the ground and mumble quite as convincingly as Jeff Goldblum.

As it happens, however, one of those other actors is his co-star, Vincent D’Onofrio, who kicks off the eighth(!) season for “Criminal Intent” at 8 tonight on USA Network.

I know “Criminal Intent” has been compared to “Columbo,” and I suppose both Peter Falk’s raincoat savant and D’Onofrio’s shifty-eyed brooder eventually get their man in remarkably similar, allegedly “intuitive” ways. But c’mon — if Falk was the crazy uncle, D’Onofrio is the crazy cousin. Big difference.

Still, I have to admit that the big lug works surprisingly well within the confines of the “CI” format. While everyone else is exerting their acting muscles to push the story line along, D’Onofrio stares into the distance and talks to himself. It’s strangely compelling.

With the addition of Goldblum (and subtraction of Chris Noth’s more conventional copper), New York’s nuttiest crime-solving unit gains another member.

Goldblum will make his debut as crimefighter Zack Nichols on this week’s “Criminal Intent,” when he’ll circle slowly around the suspects in the death of a rap MC until he intuits that the killer is the weirdest guy on the scene besides himself.

Aaron Barnhart lives online at TVBarn.com.

Posted on Sat, Apr. 18, 2009 10:15 PM

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