Items related to In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Survivor
Just a girl of 17 when the Germans and Russians divided and devoured her native Poland, Irene Gut Opdyke put her own life in danger to save Jews. Much like The Diary of Anne Frank, this haunting memoir has become a profound document of an individual's heroism in the face of the greatest evil mankind has known. of photos.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
When World War II began, Irene Gutowna was a 17-year-old Polish nursing student. Six years later, she writes in this inspiring memoir, "I felt a million years old." In the intervening time she was separated from her family, raped by Russian soldiers, and forced to work in a hotel serving German officers. Sickened by the suffering inflicted on the local Jews, Irene began leaving food under the walls of the ghetto. Soon she was scheming to protect the Jewish workers she supervised at the hotel, and then hiding them in the lavish villa where she served as housekeeper to a German major. When he discovered them in the house, Gutowna became his mistress to protect her friends--later escaping him to join the Polish partisans during the Germans' retreat. The author presents her extraordinary heroism as the inevitable result of small steps taken over time, but her readers will not agree as they consume this thrilling adventure story, which also happens to be a drama of moral choice and courage. Although adults will find Irene's tale moving, it is appropriately published as a young adult book. Her experiences while still in her teens remind adolescents everywhere that their actions count, that the power to make a difference is in their hands. --Wendy Smith
From the Inside Flap:
In My Hands began as one non-Jew's challenge to any who would deny the Holocaust. Much like The Diary of Anne Frank," it has become a profound document of an individual's heroism in the face of the greatest evil mankind has known.
In the fall of 1939 the Nazis invaded Irene Gut's beloved Poland, ending her training as a nurse and thrusting the sixteen-year-old Catholic girl into a world of degradation that somehow gave her the strength to accomplish what amounted to miracles. Forced into the service of the German army, young Irene was able, due in part to her Aryan good looks, to use her position as a servant in an officers' club to steal food and supplies (and even information overheard at the officers' tables) for the Jews in the ghetto. She smuggled Jews out of the work camps, ultimately hiding a dozen people in the home of a Nazi major for whom she was housekeeper.
An important addition to the literature of human survival and heroism, In My Hands is further proof of why, in spite of everything, we must believe in the goodness of people.
In the fall of 1939 the Nazis invaded Irene Gut's beloved Poland, ending her training as a nurse and thrusting the sixteen-year-old Catholic girl into a world of degradation that somehow gave her the strength to accomplish what amounted to miracles. Forced into the service of the German army, young Irene was able, due in part to her Aryan good looks, to use her position as a servant in an officers' club to steal food and supplies (and even information overheard at the officers' tables) for the Jews in the ghetto. She smuggled Jews out of the work camps, ultimately hiding a dozen people in the home of a Nazi major for whom she was housekeeper.
An important addition to the literature of human survival and heroism, In My Hands is further proof of why, in spite of everything, we must believe in the goodness of people.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPerfection Learning
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 0756913616
- ISBN 13 9780756913618
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages248
- Rating
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
In My Hands
Published by
Perfection Learning
(2001)
ISBN 10: 0756913616
ISBN 13: 9780756913618
Used
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Former library book; Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.6. Seller Inventory # G0756913616I5N10
Buy Used
US$ 6.37
Convert currency