A Polish woman who saved thousands of Jewish children during World War II by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto has died in the Polish capital after a long illness, aged 98.

Irena Sendlerowa was a social worker who regularly entered the Ghetto and smuggled out about 2,500 children in boxes, suitcases and trolleys.

Israel Holocaust remembrance authority Yad Vashem says her courageous activities served as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the goodness of mankind.

She rescued the children between 1940 and 1943, when the Nazis burned the Ghetto, condemning its residents to death.

In October 1943 she was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, but refused to give up the names of the children.