2008-05-12 13:38

Irena Sendler, wartime Jew saver, dies

Warsaw, May 12: Irena Sendler died in a Warsaw hospital on Monday at the age of 98, Gazeta.pl reported on Monday.

In 1942 Irena Sendler joined Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews. This underground organization in German-occupied Poland was set up to help Jews. Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where such organization existed.

With help from friends, Irena Sendler issued hundreds of false documents and successfully smuggled almost 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safety and gave them temporary new identities.

She was arrested by the Nazis on October 20, 1943. Sentenced to death, she was saved at the last minute when Zegota members bribed one of the Germans to halt the execution.

In 1965 she received the title of the Righteous Among the Nations from Yad Vashem and in 1991 was declared an honorary citizen of Israel. Irena Sendler was awarded Poland's highest distinction, the Order of the White Eagle in 2003.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland

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