Holocaust Rescuer: 'One Person Can Make a Difference'

Beaten and raped by Russian soldiers — then taken as a forced laborer at a Russian hospital in Poland at the onset of World War II — Irene Gut Opdyke managed to escape, only to bear witness to the ultimate and unsparing brutality of the Nazis as she desperately searched for her family. 
 
Peering silently from her perch in an abandoned two-story building as Jews were herded down the street, she saw German soldiers waving their guns in the air as women and children whimpered and screamed for help.
 
As quietly as she could, Irene tiptoed down the stairs and surreptitiously followed the pack at a safe distance. She saw a tiny child ripped from a mother’s arms, thrown into the air, and shot like a clay pigeon.
 
The death march ended at an open field.
 
Irene hid behind a fence. In a terrifying and merciless instant, all were gunned down, their bodies kicked and tossed into a pit.
 
The 18-year-old Polish girl, the oldest of five sisters, had been raised a Catholic and left home before the war to attend nursing school. Now, she looked to the sky and questioned God’s presence — vowing to herself always to help those in need.
 
She kept that promise for as long as she lived.
 
Soon after that unfathomable day — and just a few short weeks after being reunited with her family — Irene was forced onto a truck and taken to Tarnapol, Poland, to work in a German munitions factory.
 
She didn’t last long in that line of duty — stricken with anemia and fainting at the feet of a German Major. He’d already taken a liking to the blonde, blue-eyed girl.
 
The Major transferred Irene to a camp housing German officers, secretaries, and soldiers, where she served meals and oversaw the laundry room and the 12 Jews who worked there in their time away from the ghetto.
 
Irene secretly began supplying her new Jewish friends with food and providing them with any information she overheard on the job — putting her own life at risk for the sake of others, just as she’d vowed to do months earlier.  
 
When news of an imminent liquidation arose, Irene wracked her brain for solutions, unable to do anything but pray for a miracle.
 
The next morning, she got one. The Major told her she’d be the new housekeeper at a villa he’d taken on the outskirts of town.
 
Within a few days, she’d helped all 12 of her friends through the streets and into the basement of the big, beautiful mansion.
 
Every day, the Major would grab his hat, coat, and briefcase and head to the office with Irene in tow. Always, she locked the door behind her to ensure he’d have to knock when arriving back home.
 
Irene and the Jews went about their daily work for nearly two years in the enemy’s den. They prepared the house for extravagant Nazi parties and revelries lasting long into the night — until the fateful day Irene forgot to lock the door and the Major came home early.
 
He stood in the kitchen in disbelief, eyes bulging and chin shaking, after realizing he’d been duped — Jews hiding out right under the nose of a high-ranking German officer.
 
But he didn’t turn them in. Instead, he transformed his embarrassment into opportunity, agreeing to keep Irene’s secret only for a price.
 
She became his mistress.
 
Irene never told her Jewish friends about the arrangement that saved them from the gallows, and all 12 survived to see the end of the war.
 
After the Russians pushed the Germans out of Poland, Irene landed in a displaced persons camp, where she met a United States diplomat who arranged for her to travel to America in 1949.
 
She became a U.S. citizen five years later, marrying that diplomat and moving to the West Coast, where she worked as an interior decorator and started a family before dedicating her later life to traveling the country to tell her story. 
 
She died in 2003 at the age of 81.
 
Her daughter, Jeannie Opdyke Smith, visited the Upper School on Thursday, March 10, to share the tale of her mother’s harrowing journey — and to help carry on her lasting legacy.
 
“My mom’s story proves that we’re all part of one human family,” Jeannie concluded. “We’re all connected and we all matter — no matter who we are or where we come from.
 
“And one person can make a difference.”
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