In My Hands - Hardcover

Armstrong, Jennifer; Opdyke, Irene Gut

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679891811 ISBN 13: 9780679891819

Publisher: Random House Inc, 1999

Synopsis

Presents a dramatic portrait of the woman who was forced to work for the German army due to her blond hair, blue eyes, and youth and who waged her own personal war with the Germans by assisting the Jews, from passing on information to smuggling Jews from the work camp into the forest.

About this title

About the Author

Irene Gut Opdyke has received international recognition for her actions: the Israeli Holocaust Commission named her one of the Righteous Among the Nations, a title given to those who risked their lives by aiding and saving Jews during the Holocaust, and so she was presented with the Israel Medal of Honor, Israel's highest tribute, in a ceremony at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial;  the Vatican has given her a special commendation; and her story is part of a permanent exhibit in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
        
Ms. Opdyke began to share her story only recently -- after hearing the Holocaust denounced as a hoax or propaganda. She now travels the country, speaking to groups large and small, old and young.

Ire

From the Inside Flap

You must understand that I did not become a resistance fighter, a smuggler of Jews, a defier of the SS and the Nazis all at once. One's first steps are always small: I had begun by hiding food under a fence."

Through this intimate and compelling memoir, we are witness to the growth of a hero. Irene Gut was just a girl when the war began: seventeen, a Polish patriot, a student nurse, a good Catholic girl. As the war progressed, the soldiers of two countries stripped her of all she loved her family, her home, her innocence but the degradations only strengthened her will.

She began to fight back. Irene was forced to work for the German Army, but her blond hair, her blue eyes, and her youth bought her the relatively safe job of waitress in an officers' dining room. She would use this Aryan mask as both a shield and a sword: She picked up snatches of conversation along with the Nazis' dirty dishes and pa

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679891811
• ISBN 13: 9780679891819
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240