I decided to take a break from my fun books that offer basically no educational value by reading about one of my favorite memoir subjects- the holocaust. For as long as I could remember I’ve been interested in the holocaust and reading about the different forms of survival. So I was excited to get my hands on In My Hands by Irene Gut Opdyke.
In My Hands was different from most of the holocaust books I’ve read. Most of the books are about the Jews themselves or the different officers. This time it’s about one of the rescuers. Plus the book was from a Polish girl (most of the time I’ve read the German perspective and occasionally the Danish perspective).
I really enjoyed this book. It’s a book that showed a woman who did some extraordinary acts in some infamous times. She did so without losing her morality. Plus what I enjoyed about the book, it seemed to be more about educating people about how her war experience. It didn’t read like a story bragging about her actions which I liked.
It’s nice to read about the Polish view of the war. They were suffering too and it was nice to see some of the things that they had to deal with. But yet Irene was able to make her situation better by being selected to work for a German officer. She was able to be in charge of a small staff of Jews who she later rescued. It’s unbelievable the gall to hide several Jews in the house of a German officer and yet it was completely understandable since it was what she had available to her. After being forced to relocate both herself and the Jews in her care, she became a Polish partisan until then end of the war.
It was a great story where you could really understand her motivations. It wasn’t for glory or anything like that. It was about doing the right thing. I liked that.
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