Irene Opdyke was an American nurse, public speaker, and author. She was named by the Israeli Holocaust Commission as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Background
Irene Opdyke was born on May 5, 1922 (some sources say 1918), in Kozienice, Poland. Her father owned a factory that built electric poles and he was also an architect. Her mother was in charge of the home and cared for Opdyke and her four younger sisters. The family was considered upper middle class. At one year of age, Opdyke’s family moved from Kasinka to the town of Radom. Irene described her early years as very pleasant. The family had many contacts with different nationalities and religious groups. Opdyke’s father also had a Jewish business partner and the children of both families were best friends.
Education
Irene Opdyke's strong desire to help people in need inspired her to enroll in nursing school in the Polish city of Radom.
Career
In 1939, the German Army invaded Poland and within a month the country was defeated and partitioned among Russian, Austria, and Germany. Irene Opdyke immediately volunteered to join a Polish army unit to help in their fight. Unable to overcome the German forces, Irene's regiment went into hiding in the Ukrainian forest, where Irene was subsequently captured, brutally beaten, and raped by Russian soldiers.
Two years after she fled Radom, Irene finally returned and was joyfully reunited with her family. Irene's struggles, however, were far from over. The family was separated once again and Irene remained in Radom with one of her younger sisters. She was forced to work first in an ammunition factory for the German army, and then she was moved to the city of Ternopil, where she worked as a waitress in a Nazi officers' dining room. Irene witnessed a Nazi death march and many other acts of violence against the Jews, and it was her outrage at these acts that prompted her to fight back against the senseless death and destruction that surrounded her.
From a small first step - passing food under the fence of the Jewish ghetto - she became, in her words, "a resistance fighter, a smuggler of Jews, a defier of the SS and Nazis." She picked up snatches of conversation in the dining room and passed what she learned to Jews in the ghetto. She raided the German warehouse for food and blankets. She smuggled people from work camp into hiding in the forest. Most perilous of all, Irene hid twelve Jews in the home of a German officer for whom she worked. When the German major discovered their existence, he demanded that Irene become his mistress as payment for keeping her secret.
By 1944, the German army was suffering defeat and beginning to withdraw. Thinking of her friends in hiding first, Irene smuggled them to the forest where they would be safe from the retreating German soldiers. As for Irene, she escaped from the German major and joined a group of partisan freedom fighters dedicated to opposing fighting both the German and Soviet enemies of Poland. Irene was captured by the Soviet military police and interrogated endlessly, yet miraculously escaped through an open window. At this point, Irene was taken in and hidden from the Russians by some of the very people she had hidden from the Nazis.
Eventually, these friends would disguise her as a Jew and help smuggle her to a camp for displaced persons in Hessich-Lictenau, Germany. There, Irene met William Opdyke, a United Nations delegate sent to interview survivors of the war. Deeply moved by Irene's story, Opdyke told her that America would be proud to have her as a citizen. And so in 1949, Irene traveled to New York to begin a new life in America. She was employed in a garment factory and lived in Brooklyn. Five years after her arrival in America, Irene Gut Opdyke became a United States citizen. Irene tried to put the past behind her and didn't speak about her involvement in the war until she heard neo-Nazi groups call the Holocaust a hoax. Then she knew she must speak out and share her story.
Her story was so powerful that Opdyke soon became a speaker in great demand, and she traveled around the world to share her tale. She also wrote two books, Into the Flames: The Life Story of a Righteous Gentile (1992), with Jeffrey M. Elliot, and In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer (1999), with Jennifer Armstrong.
A firm believer that one person really can make a difference, Irene Opdyke spent the last two decades of her life teaching that lesson to thousands of Orange County schoolchildren.
Quotations:
"In my fantasies, I was always caught up in heroic struggles, and I saw myself saving lives, sacrificing myself for others. I had far loftier ambitions than mere romance."
Connections
Irene Opdyke was married to William Opdyke. They had a daughter, Jeannie Smith. Her husband died in 1993.