Irene gut opdyke was a teenager when the Nazi attack on Poland changed her life forever. She was separated from her family, escaped twice from incarceration, and captured and raped by Soviet soldiers. Her most difficult predicament was also her noblest: she saved the lives of 16 Polish Jews, hiding some of them literally beneath the noses of the German officers.The actions of rescuers during the Holocaust not only placed them into danger but also forced them to seek help from unlikely sources. Young Irene Gut showed did not plan to become a heroine. She found herself in a situation in which she could help and utilized that situation. To say that her behavior was atypical of the Polish community is a generalization that overlooks the complex situation that existed in occupied Poland.

Irene's activities as a rescuer began ironically with her own capture by the Germans to serve as a slave laborer. She had just returned to radom, in Nazi occupied Poland, from ternopol, under Soviet occupation, where her ill treatment by the Soviet military had occurred. She was arrested one day while at church in a lapanka, a roundup of Polish citizens. German soldiers actually interrupted Mass and herded the parishioners into the streets. Irene was selected for labor and loaded in a truck with other prisoners. She was sent to work in a munitions factory, where she fell ill. A German officer, Major Eduard Rugemer, felt pity for her and gave her a position in the kitchen of a hotel for Nazis.
http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Opdyke.htm
By: Curtis M. Urness, Sr.

 Hava Follman’s own account continues: On approaching Hrubieszow, we became aware of an unusual commotion; big crowds were gathered on the platform. Unsuspecting, we alighted at the station. But we soon learned that the thousands herded there were Jews; men and women, old and young, children pressed among bundles of household effects; cries and shouts of the Germans.

 Four stout, redface Germans, arms bare, ride on horseback along the platform, ply their whips ceaselessly, mistreat on who ever they find in their way, vent their wrath on mothers holding babies in their arms. huge Germans, with the face of a murderer, leads off four youths. Their faces are frozen a few meters from the window of the waiting room where Frumke and I took refuge, they are ordered to dig. They are urged along with a whip: “Quickly, we have no time!" A few minutes later, four shots are heard, and again the whip is used on those who are bidden to fill in the open grave.