Irena Sendler, the Polish Oskar Schindler is credited with saving 2,500 Polish Jews from the Holocaust.

Snopes takes issue only with the Nobel Nomination  There recently was a death of a 98 year old lady named Irena.

"During WWII, Iliana, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto.

"She had an ulterior motive…

"She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews.

"Iliana smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids).

"She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto.

"The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

"During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

"She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely.

"Iliana kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

"After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family.

"Most of course had been gassed.

"Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted." . . .

Her web site: Life in a Jar: the Irena Sendler Project. More on Irena here.

The story of the jars

. . . After the war she dug up the jars and used the notes to track down the 2,500 children she placed with adoptive families and to reunite them with relatives scattered across Europe. But most lost their families during the Holocaust in Nazi death camps. The children had known her only by her code name Jolanta. But years later, after she was honored for her wartime work, her picture appeared in a newspaper. "A man, a painter, telephoned me," said Sendler, "`I remember your face,' he said. `It was you who took me out of the ghetto.' I had many calls like that!"

In 2007, she was nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. At a special session in Poland's upper house of Parliament, President Lech Kaczynski announced the unanimous resolution to honor Irena Sendler for rescuing "the most defenseless victims of the Nazi ideology: the Jewish children." He referred to her as a "great heroine who can be justly named for the Nobel Peace Prize. She deserves great respect from our whole nation."
During the ceremony Elzbieta Ficowska, who was just six months old when she was saved by Irena Sendler, read out a letter on her behalf: “Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory,” Irena Sendler said in the letter, “Over a half-century has passed since the hell of the Holocaust, but its spectre still hangs over the world and doesn’t allow us to forget.”

In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected.

Regarding the Nobel Prize, Snopes comments:

"Irena Sendler is often claimed to have been a candidate to receive the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, but that honor was not awarded to her. It’s not possible to state categorically that she was “nominated” for the award, since information about Nobel Prize “nominations, investigations, and opinions is kept secret for fifty years.” (Since 1974 the statutes of the Nobel Foundation have stated that “work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award,” so she presumably could not be subsequently honored.)"

However, her life timeline claims Irena was nominated for the Nobel:

• January 2007– Irena is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 2007– Mandatory Holocaust education begins in Polish schools.
• August 2007– Lowell Milken Center opens, with Irena exhibit
• 2007– Irena does not receive the Nobel Peace Prize, but receives much acclaim.

Hat tip to Robert Hope, Sacramento.