Irena Sendler, 1910-2008

(Warsaw, Poland) Hero of the Holocaust, Irena Sendler, died yesterday at the age of 98.

The life of Irena Sendler was one of great testimony, one of courage and love, one of respect for all people, regardless of race, religion and creed. She passed away peacefully, knowing that her message goes on. Our hearts and prayers go out to her worldwide family. She is gone, but will never be forgotten.

Sendler was heroic in her efforts to save 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. As a city welfare worker, she masterminded risky rescue operations in Warsaw.

Under the pretext of inspecting sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, she and her assistants ventured inside the ghetto -- and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and in trams, sometimes wrapped up as packages.

Teenagers escaped by joining teams of workers forced to labour outside the ghetto. They were placed in families, orphanages, hospitals or convents.

Records show that Sendler's team of about 20 people saved nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and its final liquidation in April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.

Anyone caught helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland risked being summarily shot, along with family members -- a fate Sendler only barely escaped herself after the 1943 raid by the Gestapo.

The Nazis took her to the notorious Pawiak prison, which few people left alive.

Gestapo agents tortured her repeatedly, leaving Sendler with scars on her body -- but she refused to betray her team.

Zegota, an underground organization helping Jews, paid a bribe to German guards to free her from the prison. Under a different name, she continued her work.

Rest in peace, Irena Sendler. You'll be remembered.