Irene Gut Opdyke

Life

Irena Gut was born into a Catholic family with five daughters in Kozienice, Poland, during the interwar period. The family moved to Radom where she enrolled at the nursing school before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of 1939. At the age of 20, Irena witnessed a German soldier kill an infant in 1942. This event transformed her life. During the German occupation, Gut was hired by Major Eduard Rügemer to work in a kitchen of a hotel which frequently served Nazi officials. Inspired by her religious faith, Gut would secretly take food from the hotel and deliver it to the Radom Ghetto.

She smuggled Jews out of the ghetto into the surrounding forest and delivered food for them there as well. Meanwhile, Rügemer asked Gut to work as a housekeeper in his requisitioned villa. She hid 12 Jews in the cellar. They would come out and help her clean the house when he was not around. One day Rügemer found out about the refugees in the basement and coerced Gut into becoming his mistress to escape capital punishment. Rügemer fled with the Germans in 1944 ahead of the Russian advance. She and several Jews also fled west from Soviet occupied Poland to the Allied-occupied Germany. She was put in a Displaced Persons camp, where she met William Opdyke, a United Nations worker from New York City. She immigrated to the United States and married William Opdyke shortly thereafter. They raised a family together.

Legacy

After years of silence regarding her wartime experience, in 1975 Opdyke was convinced to speak after hearing a neo-Nazi claim that the Holocaust never occurred. Feeling compelled now to share her story, Opdyke began a public speaking career which culminated in her memoir: In My Hands: Memoirs of a Holocaust Rescuer. In 1982, Irena Opdyke née Gut was recognized and honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Polish Righteous Among the Nations.

Papal blessing

On 9 June 1995, Irene Gut Opdyke was honored with a papal blessing from Pope John Paul II at a joint service of Jews and Catholics held at a synagogue in Irvine, California. The blessing had been obtained for her with the help of Monsignor Joseph Karp of the Polish Catholic Church in Yorba Linda, California. The blessing was the first recognition by the Roman Catholic Church of her heroic efforts during the Holocaust.

Memoir

Opdyke's memoir, In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer (Alfred A. Knopf; later ISBN 0385720327), was published in 1999 through Random House, with co-author Jennifer Armstrong.

In 1998, Opdyke's story was the subject of a lawsuit when she sought to regain the right to tell the authorized account of her life story, which she had previously assigned in a motion-picture option agreement. Copyright attorney Carole Handler represented Opdyke and worked with the parties to reach an agreement. The case was dismissed with prejudice.

Play

A play based on the book In My Hands, entitled Irena's Vow, opened on Broadway on 29 March 2009 to mixed reviews. It was written by Dan Gordon and starred Tovah Feldshuh as Irena Gut. It had earlier premiered off-Broadway at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York City. After failing to find an audience, the play closed on 28 June 2009.

Song

In 2012, the British songwriter with Polish roots, Katy Carr released a song inspired by Irena entitled Mała little Flower on her album Paszport. On 26th Sept 2012, Trojka Radio in Poland nominated the song, song of the week In July 2014, Katy Carr's album Paszport was voted Best Concept Album in the 13th Independent Music Awards.