CBS producing story of Holocaust hero Sendler

A TV movie about the life of Holocaust hero Irena Sendler, who died Monday at age 98 in Poland, is being readied for production and will air next season on CBS.

“The Irena Sendler Story” is based on an authorized biography of the woman credited with rescuing some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, producer Hallmark Hall of Fame said.

The film, which had yet to be announced, is in pre-production and will be filmed in Poland. Hallmark said it acquired movie rights to the book and struck a deal with Sendler and her family in 2007.

Sendler, a social worker in Poland when Nazi Germany invaded in 1939, devised risky rescue operations to save Jewish children, some of whom were smuggled out in baskets.

The movie is drawn from the 2005 book “Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Irena Sendler Story,” written by Anna Mieszkowska.

John Kent Harrison, who became familiar with Sendler’s bravery while in Poland three years ago filming a CBS miniseries about Pope John Paul II, wrote the script for the film and will direct.