Irena Sendlerowa (de domo Krzyżanowska) was a Polish Catholic nurse who saved 2,500 Jewish children in the time of the Shoah (the Holocaust) in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Irena Sendler 1910-2008, a Righteous Among the Nations, saved 2,500 children in Warsaw. Irena Sendler was a nurse at a Catholic hospital when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939. As a nurse she was able to enter the ghetto. Irena Sendler was smuggling children out of the Warsaw ghetto to Polish Christian families. To preserve the identity of the saved children she wrote down their true names and hidden the list in jars. The jars with 2,500 names were buried in a garden. Irena Sendler was arrested by Nazis in 1943. She was tortured but she has revealed no names.

IRENA SENDLEROWA: When I saw what's going on--I just decided to act.

Irena Sendler has died peacefully on May 12th, 2008, in Warsaw, Poland.