Warsaw, Poland (AP) The family of a polish social worker credited with rescuing 2,500 jewish children from the Nazis says she has died.

Irena Sendler's daughter, Janina Zgrzembska, says her 98-year-old mother died this morning in a Warsaw hospital.

Sendler organized the rescue of jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during Nazi Germany's brutal World War Ii occupation.

Her team of some 20 people saved the children between October 1940 and April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.

Sendler was later honored by Israel's Yad Vashem Memorial for her heroism.