Irena Sendler, who smuggled thousands of Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safety, has died.
Sendler, who was later arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, died Monday in Warsaw. She was 98.
Between October 1940 and April 1943, Sendler and a team of about 20 volunteers smuggled out about 2,500 children in boxes or suitcases. She then placed them with Polish families. As a social worker, Sendler visited the ghetto regularly.
Sendler in 1965 was among the first people named by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. She also was made an honorary Israeli citizen. Sendler was nominated last year for a Nobel Peace Prize.
She lived in relative obscurity until about eight years ago, when a group of students from Uniontown, Kan., learned about her wartime heroism and wrote a play about it. The play has been performed in North America and Poland.
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