Growing up in Kozlowa Gora, Poland, six kilometers from the German border, Irene and her four sisters were taught by their parents to care for those less fortunate. In 1939, seventeen-year-old Irene was studying to be a nurse. Her studies ended when Poland was torn apart by the Germans and Russians. Irene roamed the Lithuanian forests with the remnant of the Polish army until she was captured by the Russians. After two years, she finally managed to return to her family in Radom. Here, for the first time, Irene witnessed the misery of ghetto life. Soon after, her family torn apart, Irene was captured by the Germans and put to work for the Reich.
Thus began a new chapter in which she chose to defy the evil that surrounded her. Forced to work in a German officers’ dining hall and in the laundry facility, Irene’s defiance began with small acts of bravery. She hid food under the fence of the ghetto; she eavesdropped on the plans of the Germans and used the information she gained to warn the Jews in the ghetto of forthcoming Aktions. Little by little, her bravery increased until she was smuggling Jews out of the work camp and helping them hide in the forest. Then, when Ternoplo rid itself of its Jews, Irene, housekeeper to Major Rugemer, managed to hide twelve Jews in the basement of his home.
Irene’s memoir spares us no pain as she recalls the horrors she witnessed. We see the murderous chaos that reigns when she watches an Aktion, “an anthill kicked to pieces,” in the Glinice Ghetto. Later, the hellish images of the murder of Jews from the work camp lead us to agree with Irene when she says, “Behold. This is the worst thing man can do.” In contrast to these clearly-depicted horrors, Irene’s heroism reminds us that even in hell, one can make the right choices. Her memoir also holds other flickers of humanity. Herr Schulz, Irene’s superior, a man “quick with praise and gentle with rebukes” is an anomaly among the Germans. Says Irene of his quiet support of her actions, “He made hating the Germans a complex matter when it should have been a straightforward one.”
Alone after the war, Irene, aided by the people she had saved, eventually made her way to a DP camp in Hessich-Lichtenau. After three years of working here, she met William Opdyke, a UN delegate who offered her American citizenship and whom she eventually married. Finally, Irene received a measure of tranquility.
Thanks to Jennifer Armstrong’s skillful writing, Irene begins her memoir with a vivid image: “There was a bird flushed up from the wheat fields, disappearing in a blur of wings against the sun, and then a gunshot and it fell to the earth. But it was not a bird. It was not a bird….” This image, which depicts the murder of a baby, haunts Irene. The bird imagery continues throughout the memoir, until finally Irene manages to change the image into one of survival and hope: “Like a bird freed from a net, my heart flew up to the sky.” Other flashes of beautiful language appear sporadically throughout the memoir. Just before the mass murder of the inmates of the worker’s camp, we read, “…rumor snuck like a pickpocket through the crowd, stealing hope from people’s hearts.” The beauty of the imagery, so out of place in this ghastly setting, underscores a macabre situation.
“Hate is easy; it takes real courage to love. We have an opportunity every day to love – give it out freely. One person can make a difference.” For readers today, Irene’s words can spur us to make the right choices in our lives.