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Into the Flames: The Life Story of a Righteous Gentile (Studies in Judaica and the Holocaust)

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Irene Gut Opdyke is one of those cherished few to have been honored by the State of Israel as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" and even further recognized by the United States Holocaust Musuem as a permanent contributor to the study of the Holocaust. "Into the Flames" is her story.

The author is Catholic and Polish. Her story begins when she is but 17 years old and her native land of Poland is invaded first by the Germans and then by the Russians. She becomes involved with the Polish underground but is soon captured, and brutalized, by a group of Russian soldiers.

After recuperating in a hospital, she eventually ends up in German occupied Poland and begins working for a German Major. There, she is horrified to discover that the Germans are mistreating the Jewish people, e.g., keeping them enclosed in ghettos and depriving them of food. She even witnesses first-hand the slaughter of some Jews. She decides that she must do something and begins by sneaking food through a fence into the ghetto. Later, she helps in hiding some Jews in a forest outside town. Next, she hides a dozen Jews in the basement of the German Major's own house!

These Jews are discovered by the Major, who elicits an accomodation with the author for keeping them in his house: If she stays with him and becomes his willing lover, he will not report her or the Jews. Although repulsed by the Major, she agrees to his terms and for months continues this masquerade until the Germans, including the Major, are forced to evacuate due to oncoming Russian forces. In the evacuation, she escapes from the Major and rejoins the partisan underground, leaving the 12 Jews under the care of another, as she must, and they are kept safe until all the Germans are gone.

She is later arrested by the Soviets as a partisan fighter but escapes from them as well. She takes on a Jewish name, flees to Germany, and volunteers to fight for the State of Israel but is turned down for health reasons. She finally ends up in America.

The author's story is one of incredible courage, pluck, and determination. It is a must read.