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On The Bookshelf

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Defying The Odds

Author Irene Gut Opdyke remembers her daring
rescue of Jews during the Holocaust in a new book
geared to both young readers and adults.

night as she and her fellow nursing
students fled from the invading Nazis.
For several weeks Opdyke led a
feral
existence in the woods — until
rene Gut Opdyke's new book,
she
was
captured and raped by
' In My Hands: Memories of a
Russian soldiers. Beaten unconscious
Holocaust Rescuer (Knopf ;
during the brutal episode, she woke
$18), shares some elements of a
up in a prison hospital where she
first-rate thriller. But she is quick to
regained her health and worked as a
point out that neither skill nor luck
nurse's aide.
had much to do with the daring res-
In that same hospital, her supervi-
cue of 12 Jews she hid in the base-
sor
sexually harassed her, but she also
ment of an SS officer's villa.
experienced
uncommon kindness
"There was no luck in this — only
from a staff doctor she calls Dr.
divine guidance," Opdyke said in a
David. It was the latter who orches-
recent interview with the Jewish News.
trated Opdyke's
Over the years,
escape after she con-
Yad Vashem, the
fided that her super-
United States
visor
tried to rape
Holocaust Memorial
her.
Museum and other
She eventually
Jewish groups have
found her way back
honored Opdyke for
home after a har-
her extraordinary
rowing three-year
heroism. But men-
odyssey. But this
tion the name of
was
not to be the
another Holocaust
happy
ending for
rescuer, Oskar
which
she
hoped. A
Schindler, and
few months after
Opdyke balks at any
her return home,
attempt to connect
she was rounded up
their stories.
by the Nazis during
"There are no
a church service and
similarities between
forced to keep house
me and Schindler,
for a German offi-
she said. "I acted
Irene Gut Opdyke at age 17,
cer, a major in the
alone. He was a big
in 1939.
S.S.
man, a businessman
The Holocaust
who changed sides
raged all around Opdyke, but in her
after he found out that the Germans
protected status she only caught brief
were losing. He was not as involved
glimpses of what went on in that
[in rescuing Jews] as the movie por-
unthinkable inferno. The major's
trayed."
headquarters abutted a Jewish ghetto,
If a movie were made of Opdyke's
and she recalls that from the window
life, it would begin at the outbreak of
she saw "a death march, a baby torn
World War II and feature Irene Gut, a
from his mother's arms and shot in
17-year-old nursing school student in
mid-air like a bird. At that point I
Radom, Poland. What happened to
wanted to react but didn't," she said.
her in the subsequent six years veers
"Now I realize that if I had, I wouldn't
from the picaresque to the tragic.
have been able to save so many peo-
Opdyke was the eldest of five
ple.
daughters, brought up a Catholic in
What she did do was take her cru-
Poland near the German border. Her
cial first step toward becoming a res-
father's business partner was Jewish,
cuer. In her book, she writes, "I did
and so were many childhood friends.
not become a resistance fighter, a
Life as she knew it ended abruptly one

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Detroit Jewish News

9/24

1999

97