What’s it about?
In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer is the memoir of Irene Gut Opdyke, a Polish Catholic teenager who became a rescuer under Nazi occupation. As a nurse and later housekeeper in a German officer’s villa, she smuggled food into ghettos, ferried messages and supplies, and hid a group of Jews in the villa’s basement—directly beneath the nose of a Nazi major. When her secret was discovered, Irene faced an ultimatum that demanded an unthinkable personal sacrifice to keep them alive. This is a story of ingenuity, terror, and moral courage sustained day after day.
Book Review: In My Hands
by Irene Gut Opdyke with Jennifer Armstrong
Published: 1999
Review published: September 8, 2025
What I Learned / My Take
1. Even as a teenager, Irene’s choices showed that courage doesn’t wait for the “right age” — she was 17 when she began smuggling food into ghettos./p>
2. Her story taught me that sometimes resistance isn’t dramatic gunfights, but the quiet acts of slipping bread through a fence or opening a cellar door.
3. Irene’s life showed me that survival often came at impossible moral costs — she gave up her own body to Major Rügemer to protect the people hidden below him.
4. I learned that bravery doesn’t erase fear; Irene lived in constant terror of discovery but chose to act anyway.
5. The book challenged me to see how even “ordinary” people can become rescuers if they decide others’ lives matter as much as their own.
6. I realized that silence can be complicity. Irene could have stayed safe by looking away, but instead risked execution every single day.
7. Her recognition as “Righteous Among the Nations” reminded me that acts of humanity, however hidden at the time, can echo for generations.
8. Perhaps most of all: the Holocaust wasn’t only about death — it was also about the courage of people like Irene, who fought to keep life alive in the shadows.
Scenes and Images that Stuck with Me:
- Irene hiding twelve Jews in the basement of the Nazi officer’s villa, knowing that every knock on the door could mean discovery and death.
- The gut-punch moment when Major Rügemer discovered the hidden Jews — and instead of turning them in, demanded Irene become his mistress. Her decision to submit, sacrificing her own dignity to preserve their lives, is one of the most haunting parts of the book.
- The small, tense acts of smuggling food into the ghetto — a loaf of bread tucked under her coat, a few potatoes hidden in her apron — knowing even that tiny kindness could cost her life.
- Irene standing frozen as she watched German soldiers execute Jews in the forest, realizing in that moment that she could never again be a bystander.
- The claustrophobic fear of living in the officer’s house with the Jews directly beneath her, every creak in the floorboards making her heart pound.
- The final recognition decades later, when she stood before Yad Vashem to be honored as “Righteous Among the Nations,” showing how her hidden sacrifices were finally given light.
Would I recommend it?
Absolutely. If you want a first-person account that shows how calculated, daily defiance can preserve life, this memoir gives you the granular reality—costs, compromises, and the courage it takes to keep choosing others over yourself.