Polish Catholic woman who saved children from Nazis dies at 98

Published: 2008-05-15

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- Polish church leaders paid tribute to Irena Sendler, a Catholic social worker who saved approximately 2,500 Jewish children from being killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. "Everyone who survived the war is very much aware that her kind of heroism could be born only in someone with a very great heart," said Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, former secretary-general of the Polish bishops' conference. "Irena Sendler was one of those people able to resist the greatest evil that rampaged through the world in the past century. It's a pity her greatness was not noticed by the international institutions even after her actions were brought to light." Sendler, who died at 98 in Warsaw May 12, was buried May 15 in Warsaw. She was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations honor by Israel's Yad Vashem in 1965 and Poland's highest honor, the White Eagle, in 2003 for smuggling children from Warsaw's Jewish ghetto to safe homes, orphanages and Catholic convents in Poland.

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