Juste Irena

JUSTE IRENA opens at La Merise Trappes on 27 March 2026. On stage, the artistic team sketches the portrait of Irena, 94, a resident of a nursing home in Poland. Beneath a quiet daily routine, a story resurfaces: during the Second World War, Irena and her network of women smuggled more than 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto. The show also follows three female students from Kansas who investigate, cross-check leads, probe unclear areas and set their findings in dialogue with Irena’s faltering memory.

The production blends theatre, puppetry and object theatre. Performers move between modes to reveal the fragments of a narrative that navigates between historical reality and stage fiction. Without heavy-handed effects, the staging attends to gestures, archives, recurring names and the weight of silence. JUSTE IRENA explores memory, courage and humanity in the face of barbarity, and reminds us how acts of compassion, however modest, can alter a destiny. It is a tribute to those who take action, told on a human scale.