Deathplace: Warsaw, Poland

Irena Sendler was the head of the children’s bureau of Zegota, an underground organization that saved the lives of Jews in Poland after the Nazi invasion in 1939. With the help of about 30 other volunteers, Sendler smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto in World War II. She was a social worker in Warsaw with a pass that allowed her to enter the ghetto and convince parents to let her rescue their children. In 1965, the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem honored Sendler for her work.