Every time a truly remarkable person dies, the world is a little poorer for it.

Irena Sendler died today. She was 98. A long, and, hopefully, post-war happy life. No one deserved it more.

She had saved some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, some of them in baskets. She was arrested and tortured but refused to give up her accomplices. And after she escaped, she changed her name and continued her work.

When honored as a hero, she responded with: "Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory."

May she rest in true peace. As a born Jew, and an agnostic at best, I don't know if there is a heaven. But at times like these, I sure hope there something. Because there has to be a place where people like that get their due.

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