Book Review, In My Hands

In My Hands
By Irene Gut Opdyke with Jennifer Armstrong
Illustrated. 263 pages. Dell Laurel-Leaf. $6.99

"You must understand that 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" (back cover). When World War II broke out in Poland, Irene was ready to help in any way that she could. Help was an understatement to what she actually accomplished.

When the war started Irene was just seventeen years old and a student nurse. She jumped the gun and was willing to help with the first shipment of people. She was forced to grow up and mature at such a young age. She had to be strong for the family she had left and for all the people she was going to help. At her age she should have been falling in love and starting a family, not saving lives.

Irene had a will to never give up. She was separated from her family so many times and no matter how long it took and what she had to go through she always tried to find them. Never did she give up on her Jewish friends. They were scared for her and did not want her to risk her life for theirs. She did not care and was willing to do anything to help save them. Not once did it cross my mind that Irene would give up on these people. They were what she lived for. She had no one else to rely on.

Courage and bravery play a huge role in this memoir. Irene never let fear get in her way. She would not have been so successful if she had been afraid. The things she did were a capital crime and she could have gotten killed had she been caught. That had crossed her mind but it just made her more careful in how she did things. She was always able to keep her cool in complicated situations.

The setting is in Poland which has been taken over. The basement where the Jews are living is in a Nazi officials home. The conditions were good for them but not something you would want to live in. There is a part in the book where the Jews are hiding in an air conditioning vent. It is small and crowded and I could get a sense of how they were living and what it was like. The book has pictures in it so you are able to see the outside of the Nazi officials home where the Jews were hiding.

I really enjoyed reading the book. It just boggled my mind as to how Irene was able to do all of this. I know that I could not and I see her as such an amazing person. It makes me think that there are actually people in this world that will help complete strangers at the risk of losing your own life. The book was not humerous in its content. It was however funny that twelve Jews were able to hide under a Nazi officials home.

In My Hands

"Moral courage is a more rare commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence." Robert Francis Kennedy

This quote is saying that doing the "right thing" is often harder and less heard of than doing a physical act of bravery. Throughout the book Irene trys to make the right choice to do what is right no matter how much trouble she might end up in. Helping the Jews could have easily gotten you killed during that time. Irene sees the people in the ghetto and feels for them. She wants to help them. Though it might get her in trouble, it is the right thing to do. She begins to help them by placing a box of food under the fence everyday. If at anytime she got caught she could end up dead or as a prisoner. That didn't seem to matter to her as much as helping those people. Irene also recommends that people from the camps come and work in the laundry room so they have a better working environment. She begins to leave food for them in laundry baskets so they can eat. She gets extra blankets from Schultz so the Jews can make winter coats for themselves. She also goes into the ghetto to get Fanka out of there alive. Though all of these things were techinally the wrong thing to do, she new in her heart that it was the right thing to do. Her moral courage overpowered any fear that she might have had of getting caught.