My harmonious padlet by Sierra Emmett

Irene Gut Opdyke

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Holocaust Resister

Irene Opdyke born Irena Gut was born in Kozienice, Poland in 1922 into a Catholic upper middle class family. While training to become a nurse she was put into the war efforts. German officer.

se3312 — 2024-02-18 22:54:04 UTC

While training to become a nurse she was put into the war efforts. 1939 she was attacked and left for dead. She was taken to a Russian hospital forced to learn Russian and work under a Russian doctor until she fled. She was then taken in by a country doctor posing as his cousin.

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For several months she and the doctor traveled helping the poor and vaccinating children against cholera and tuberculosis.

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Irena's Vow movie trailer

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Boston Jewish Film Festival Q&A

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While working in the kitchen of a German officer she witnessed the murder of Jewish in the street and a death march.

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She and her friends started an “information system” that would warn of Nazi raids. During this time she also smuggled out food and travel vouchers.

1942

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In 1942 she smuggled twelve Jewish friends including a pregnant woman into the basement of the German officer’s country villa for nearly nine months. Upon being caught with three of them she was forced by the officer to engage in lude acts to keep his silence.

After Russians began taking control of Ukraine. Opdyke smuggled out her friends before the German’s began a mass exodus.

Irene withm members of the family she saved.

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Irene is second from right

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1945

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In 1945 she was arrested and with the help of Jewish prisoners she escaped several days. She returned to Krakow to find out her father was murdered shortly after being taken by the Germans.

After the war she became very ill and was smuggled out of Poland and into Germany where she was hospitalized for two months.

1949

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"I went to a Jewish displaced-persons camp with all the Jews who were homeless after the war. From that camp they helped people settle in Allied countries. A group of men came from the United Nations to the camp. One was American and he interviewed me and said America would be proud to have me. So I came here in 1949, to the United States, alone."

Public Speaking

se3312 — 2024-02-18 23:38:19 UTC

“In 1975 I heard a neo-Nazi say that the Holocaust was a hoax, and I decided I had to start talking. I think another Holocaust could happen if we don't mingle together to try to understand one another and not be ignorant. It's my duty to tell the truth about what I saw.”

In My Hands

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Into the Flames

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“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.”

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Holocaust survivor Roman Haller

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“Irene for me is like a mother, maybe even more, like someone who has given birth to me. Irene saved my life, and not only my life, the lives of my parents.” Holocaust survivor Roman Haller