Irene Gut Opdyke Part I Early Years These stories of remarkable WWII survivors are from World War II Survivors: Lessons in Resilience, by Glenn R. Schiraldi, Ph.D., published by Chevron Publishing, Elliott City, MD, 2007 (©2007 Glenn R. Schiraldi. Do not reproduce without 1 written permission). Irene Gut Opdyke Chapter 1 IreneIrene GutGut OpdykeOpdyke Polish Partisan Irene Gut Opdyke was in nursing school in Radom, Poland, when Hitler’s forces invaded her country in 1939. She fled to the Ukraine with the Polish army. Returning to Poland, this young Catholic girl risked her life to save Jews and serve in the resistance movement. Her story is one of extraordinary courage and compassion. Mrs. Opdyke now lives in beautiful Yorba Linda, California. Her walls are filled with awards and recognitions, including the Righteous Among the Nations Award. This award, which Oskar Schindler also received, is given by the Israeli Holocaust Commission to people who risked their lives to aid Jews during the Holocaust. She also received Israel’s highest honor, the Israel Medal of Honor, and a special commendation from the Vatican. A diminutive, elegant woman with warm, radiant blue eyes and delicate features, she is one of the kindest, most loving women I have encountered. She reminds one of Mother Teresa. As she spoke I often found myself choking back tears. She says, “I try to bring the love to children.” As we parted, she gave me a kiss and a hug, saying, “You are like a son, I love you”— words I will always cherish. We were five girls in my family. I was the oldest—born May 5, 1922, in Kozienice, eastern Poland. The others came about every two years and were born in different cities in Poland, as father moved for his work. Father was a builder, an architect and chemist, who made ceramic parts for factories. I had wonderful parents. They taught us to help humans in need. There was always someone we had to help with food. For holidays like Christmas, we always had two or three chairs for invited guests. We helped gypsies in the forest, animals, anyone who needed help we were taught to help. All my sisters are wonderful, wonderful people. We brought every animal home that needed help—cats, dogs, birds. Mother ministered to sick gypsies and called the doctor if needed. She had a talent for animals. She rehabilitated birds and could get them to come to the window to be fed. She provided whatever old people needed—food, drink, or encouragement. We were a happy and close family. We loved our parents very much. There was always music and singing in our house. Father loved to play the piano and guitar. We all loved to sing and had beautiful voices. Mother taught us cooking, baking, and cleaning. I baked very beautiful tortes. We went to church regularly and dressed nicely. My parents taught us right and wrong. There were rules. We had to be nice to people. When we did wrong, father would correct us kindly and talk to us about being good human beings. Mother said you can marry a millionaire, but you must still learn to work. We had a maid, yet we had to scrub our wooden floor and mother checked. Father and Mother did not distinguish among their friends—Jews, Germans, Poles—and neither did we. My parents were happy that we had many friends of different backgrounds. We were well-to-do, not rich, but we had no worry about money. You might say we were upper echelon, Polish intelligentsia. We had a maid from the village. They gladly came to learn how to serve. When I was a teen, we were living near the German border. Hitler was already screaming over the radio. My father had no son, but I thought I’d be a nurse to help in the defense of Poland. I left my family at the age of sixteen to study nursing in Radom, an industrial center in central Poland. 3 WORLD WAR II SURVIVORS - LESSONS IN RESILIENCE The Invasion Poland was taken from both sides by the Germans and the Russians. The Luftwaffe bombed Radom on September 1, 1939, as I was walking to the hospital. The city was on fire, and the wounded were everywhere. I had tended the wounded at the hospital for several days when the Polish army officers asked for volunteers to go with them. I, three other young nursing students, and other nurses and doctors joined them as we fled eastward. But a Polish general said the war was over because of the German/Russian pact. So we ran to the forest in the Polish Ukraine. We had little food, and would go to the villages to barter for food. A Russian patrol truck came and I was standing watch alone. I had time to yell a warning to my friends, and then tried to run to the woods. Three soldiers got hold of me and violated me, beat me, and left me in the snow to die. Someone found me and brought me to a Russian hospital in Ternopol. After recovering, I was put to work as a nurse. There I met Dr. David, a Ukrainian Pole, who helped me to escape after the hospital administrator tried to rape me. I had hit the administrator with a bottle with all my might and was scared that I had killed him. I told Dr. David, and he helped me to escape eastward to the Russian village of Svetlana. I stayed there a year with a woman doctor who had gone to medical school with Dr. David. I believe that Dr. David was Jewish. Exchange In January of 1941, I learned that Poles could now return to their families by going back through Ternopol for processing. I wanted to go home so I took a train to Ternopol, where somebody recognized me from the hospital. I was arrested and repeatedly interrogated with threats of Siberia and torture. The hospital administrator had accused me of being a dangerous Polish partisan and spy. I hid my train ticket in my bra. They tried to discover the identity of my friends who helped me escape from the hospital and hide. I escaped from a guard and ran through back alleys and yards back to the train station. The time was now past for my train to leave. However, I learned that the train had been delayed for two days and I boarded it. Crossing into German-held Poland, the passengers were placed in a quarantine camp. I was suffering from influenza. A German guard thought I was German because of my blond hair and blue eyes, my German-sounding name, and the fact that I spoke German. That helped me. He got the doctor. At last I recovered and continued on to Radom, where my aunt lived. Radom By now, my shoes were falling apart and my coat was to the floor. I could not find my way in the ruined city with new German street names. A man in a buggy took pity on me. He said he had four daughters and didn’t mind that I couldn’t pay him. After traveling for some time, I recognized the house. When I got off I found that all my family was now at my aunt’s house. My father had left everything in Oberschlesien, ousted by the Germans. Now he was making black market slippers. I told my father about my experience at the hands of the Russian soldiers. He said, “Child, that should not ruin your life. During war, men are animals. You didn’t freeze in the forest. Someone found you. That means God has something for you to do.” Soon thereafter, the Gestapo picked up my father because they needed to make changes in the machinery in a factory that he’d built in Oberschlesien. We had no way to make a life. Pretty girls were put in soldiers’ casinos and brothels there. So Mother decided to take the three young girls and go be with Father. Janina and I, the oldest, stayed in Radom. We cried for loneliness. Later I learned that the youngest girls became slaves in the clay mines. One Sunday at church, the doors opened and we found that the church was surrounded by the Gestapo and Wehrmacht. They took the young boys and girls. I was sent to work in the ammunition factory. I was weak from malnutrition and anemia and fainted at my station. When the Major Rügemer came to inspect, he saw me and yelled at the soldiers for using sick people. He asked me my name. I answered in German. He asked if I was German. I said, “No, I am Polish and Catholic.” He said I spoke good German. I said I had learned it in high school as a second language since we lived near the German border. He said he would assign me to serve meals to officers and secretaries who were 4 Irene Gut Opdyke quartered in a large hotel in town. I was assigned to work with the cook named Schulz. He was Wehrmacht, a good man. When we were introduced, he said I was skinny, and gave me food to eat. Once I was setting tables in an upstairs ballroom of the hotel. There were heavy velvet drapes. I heard shooting, dogs barking, and screaming. I opened the curtains to look. I saw the Gestapo running after people in the Jewish ghetto, dogs biting, dead bodies. I stood paralyzed with my mouth opened.