Polish Parliament Honors Holocaust Hero

Polish parliament has honored a 97-year-old Warsaw woman for saving the lives of 2,500 Jews during the Holocaust.

Polish senators Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution honoring Irena Sendler and the Polish Underground Council for assisting Jews.

President Lech Kaczynski told senators that Sendler was a great hero deserving of the Nobel Prize.

Sendler led a group that smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safety until the Nazis arrested her in 1943.

Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance authority honored Sendler in 1965 awarding her one of its first medals for people who saved Jews During World War II.

The Nazis forced hundreds of thousands of Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto after they invaded Poland in 1939. They summarily executed people who were caught helping those held there.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.