In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer

“I was always awed when I saw the holy icon. It was a small painting, and it was dark with age. But the simple image of the Madonna and Child was said to have miraculous power, and on Christmas night, with the stuffy air full of incense and the voices of the priests murmuring in Latin, on that night it was possible to believe the painting was miraculous, that it was the protector of Poland. It was easy for me to believe that with such a powerful guardian, Poland would never fall.” 

This quote illustrates Irena’s strong religious faith from a very young age, as well as her love for the home country she believes “would never fall.” Young Irena’s idealism seems naïve once the war begins, but her early faith will support her throughout the memoir. While the trappings of Catholicism that entrance Irena here—the incense, the priests, the impressive painting—will disappoint her at times, as the book continues, God himself will continue to serve as a strong source of comfort and strength.

“In my fantasies, I was always caught up in heroic struggles, and I saw myself saving lives, sacrificing myself for others. I had far loftier ambitions than mere romance.” 

Even before the war begins, Irena dreams of becoming a hero—not to gain glory for herself, but rather to serve others. Her sense of duty and compassion, coupled with ambition and bravery, will allow her to save many lives once World War II begins. 

“I felt a strange disbelief that the sky was still blue and the sun was shining. Around me was complete destruction: cars burning, houses in ruins, glass and bricks strewn across the streets, a haze of smoke slinking along the sidewalks. Yet overhead were white, gauzy clouds. It was as though the sun and the clouds did not care that Poland was being murdered.” 

Here, the author introduces the idea that nature is indifferent to man’s violence and suffering, and as hard as it is for Irena to believe, the world continues as it did before the almost inconceivable horrors of war. Also important here is the idea of Poland being “murdered”; once again, we see Irena’s love for her country and her despair for its fate.

“Somehow, I was going with the ragtag army-without-a-country into the Lithuanian forest. It seemed unreal to me, as though I were only acting a part in a play. This could not be me, climbing into a truck and sitting on a crate of ammunition. The real Irena belonged at home, not here, unwashed, hungry, shivering. I watched a louse crawl out of my coat sleeve. This was not really me with lice. It could not be.” 

Especially in the early years of the war, Irena often detaches herself from the violence surrounding her, feeling as though what’s happening to her cannot possibly be real. By removing herself emotionally from the scenes around her, Irena is able to keep moving forward, rather than succumbing to despair. At the same time, her sense of disbelief again reflects how terrible this war is—this level of inhumanity is something that simply should not be real, should not be accepted, though Irena must find a way to live through it.

“Overhead were stars, thousands of stars like a field of snowdrops in spring. I had the sensation that I sometimes had in the spring when I looked out over a meadow full of flowers—that if I could only run fast enough I would rise up and fly.” 

This quote occurs when Irena is violently raped by Russian soldiers. It’s an early example of the bird imagery that defines Irena throughout the memoir: here she is a younger, weaker bird who is not able to fly away, no matter how hard she tries. The quote also illustrates Irena’s detachment from the violation she undergoes, as she focuses not on what’s happening to her, but rather on the beautiful stars above her. This detachment allows Irena to survive a nightmarish experience and juxtaposes horror with an image of beauty and hope.

“Fresh green spring air blew through the cars as we sped across the Polish countryside. Along a fence line I saw purple lilacs bowing in the breeze, and I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry.” 

This quote reflects the memoir’s lilac motif and the way the war has changed Irena and her world. An image that once would have filled Irena with hope now leaves her perplexed, unsure of her own emotions, torn between laughter and tears. Ultimately the “tears flowed” (73) as Irena mourns the loss of her country’s innocence, represented here by the lilacs. 

“Janina and I would recall Jewish friends from our girlhood […] friends who were Jewish but who were not different from us. It seemed to us, as we lay sleepless in the dark, that if our childhood friends could be considered enemies, what was to keep us from the same fate? Weren’t we all the same? Hitler would finish the Jews, ghetto by ghetto, and then turn his full attention to the rest of us Poles.” 

This quote illustrates Irena’s sense of humanity carried through from her childhood, as she believes that a different religion does not make people “enemies” and that all humans deserve compassion. Irena realizes that violence and hate will never offer her a way to save herself and her people, but will only engender more violence, as Hitler will move on from the Jews to a new target. 

“It is a terrible irony of war, that nature itself does not rebel when man turns against his brother. I have seen nightmares take place on beautiful spring days. The birds can hop from one branch to another, tipping their heads and honing their small beaks against the bark while a child dies in the mud below.” 

Here the author describes both the “nightmare” of war, and nature’s apparent indifference to these human tragedies. Juxtaposed with the picture of flitting birds, the death of a child seems even more horrifying, while at the same time nature’s renewal gives hope that life will continue.

“I saw an officer make a flinging movement with his arm, and something rose up into the sky like a fat bird. With his other hand he aimed his pistol, and the bird plummeted to the ground beside its screaming mother, and the officer shot the mother, too […] But it was not a bird. It was not a bird. It was not a bird.” 

In perhaps the most powerful example of the bird imagery used throughout the memoir, Opdyke depicts a German soldier shooting a Jewish baby by comparing the baby to a bird. The imagery underscores the baby’s innocence and fragility, but unlike a bird, the helpless baby cannot fly away. The repetitive negation of “It was not a bird” illustrates how difficult it is for Irena to accept the brutality she’s witnessed.

“At the time, to speak of it seemed worse than sacrilege: We had

witnessed a thing so terrible that it acquired a dreadful holiness. It was a miracle of evil. It was not possible to say with words what we had witnessed, and so we kept it safely guarded until the time when we could bring it out, and show it to others, and say, ‘Behold. This is the worst thing man can do.’” 

After witnessing the murder of countless Jews, including children and even infants, Irena and her companions have no words to express such evil. However, even at this moment of despair, Irena seems aware that at some time in the future, she will have both the ability and responsibility to share what she’s seen, as she does through her memoir.

This quotation also illustrates a moment when human brutality seems to triumph over the power of God and religion. Evil becomes its own perverse religion here, with a “dreadful holiness.”

“The officers talked as if I were not there: I did not count. I was only a girl. But I listened to the officers discuss the progress at the front. I listened to the secretaries gossip about Berlin. I listened especially when Rokita dined with Major Rügemer, which was quite often, and if he thought I lingered because I had a crush on him, so much the better.”

Here Irena exploits the fact that she is “only a girl” to trick the Germans and gain knowledge, which in turn brings her power. Irena transforms what should make her weak—her youth and her status as a female in the midst of war—into a source of secret strength.

“I was grateful, and I was relieved, and yet I was almost angry at Schulz for being so kind and for helping me help the Jews without admitting it—he made hating the Germans a complex matter, when it should have been such as straightforward one.” 

Here Irena realizes that like all human beings, the Germans cannot be grouped into black and white categories, cannot be categorized as entirely good or evil. As Opdyke says at the end of the book, the war was “a series of choices made by…people” (265), and even Germans, whose political leaders attempted to exterminate an entire cultural group, made individual choices that affirmed humanity.  

“I did not ask myself, Should I do this? But, How will I do this? Every step of my childhood had brought me to this crossroad; I must take the right path, or I would no longer be myself.” 

Having been raised to feel compassion for others and to value human life, Irena never questions the fact that she will try to save her friends from suffering and death. Here, heroism and self-sacrifice become not just an option, but a duty Irena must undertake without question in order to maintain her own humanity. Through Irena’s thought process, the author illustrates how a basic respect for human life can lead to great acts of bravery.

“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.” 

By reminding readers of the small steps that lead to tremendous acts of courage, Opdyke suggests that anyone with a good heart can become a hero. Even small acts of compassion can contribute greatly to the fight against evil, and by taking the first step, one can move toward great achievements.

“I was now twenty-one years old, and I had been a fighter on and off for four years. These four years should have been spent in school, or in falling in love and starting a family, or in working at a job, or in a hundred other ways. But that was not to be. For four years I had been in the middle of war, and I had different hopes and expectations now. I only wanted not to die in too much pain, and to foil the Germans as much as I could before I went.”

This quote illustrates the way war disrupts and destroys innocent lives full of potential. Instead of being able to enjoy life, study and gain knowledge, and thrive in a job of her own choosing, Irena expects she will die in the war and wants only to defeat her enemies first. While Irena does survive the war, she can never reclaim the precious years she lost. Many other young people weren’t lucky enough to survive.

“Sometimes it made me cringe inside, to get what I wanted by playing up my femininity. Yet I knew it was the one power I had, and I would have been a fool not to use it. For my pretty face, for the affection he felt for me, the major would let me have my way.” 

Here, Irena hints at the pitfalls of using her femininity to get what she wants, even when doing so for a noble cause. “Cring[ing]” inside” as a result of her actions, Irena has to live with the fact that she’s compromising her own values. At the same time, Irena’s self-sacrificing nature urges her to use this “one power” despite the cost to her peace of mind and sense of integrity.

“But I only saw myself, as if from above, sitting alone on the seat of the dorożka, and it seemed to me as if the wagon behind stretched on forever, crowded with people, frightened people who depended on me to bring them safely home. I could not drop the reins. And there was no one who could take them from me, not even for a moment.” 

In this vision, Irena feels that she alone bears the burden of saving her Jewish friends, with no one else she can rely on for help. Irena’s strong sense of duty gives her the strength to save many lives, but at the same time, she places extraordinary pressure on herself. Yet in contrast to this vision, in reality, Irena does find people who will help her bear this responsibility, such as Father Joseph and Zygmunt Pasiewski. While Irena can never drop the reins, she does have friends who will make the load a little lighter, if only for a moment.

“God had saved my life so many times that I had to believe there was a reason. And I was sure I knew what that reason was: It was to save my friends’ lives. The price I had to pay for that was nothing by comparison. I had not received consolation from the priest, but I had God’s blessing. I was never more sure of anything.” 

Here, Irena is disappointed by one representative of organized religion, but she reaffirms her faith in God. This priest has told her he cannot give her absolution if she becomes MajorRügemer’s mistress to save her Jewish friends—thus, he implies that these Jewish lives are less valuable than Irena’s own purity. Irena, on the other hand, remains sure that God’s purpose for her is to save her friends, and she is willing to pay whatever price that may require.

“Father Tadeusz talked with me day after day, bringing me step by step out of the darkness that clung to me. The notion of God’s will had almost lost its meaning for me; I had seen so many people die during those war years. But this good priest reminded me time and again how often I had prevailed, how many times my luck had been almost miraculous; he reminded me that although many had died, many now lived because of me. That was God’s will, Father Tadeusz told me. God has his reasons for everything, and we cannot know what those reasons might be.” 

In this quote, Irena again seeks support from a priest, and this time she finds the help she’s seeking. Even after the war ends, Irena chooses to believe that God saved her for a reason, and that she must not give in to despair now. While God’s will has caused suffering and death that Irena can never fully understand, he also gave her the ability to save many lives.

“I asked myself what I was escaping from. Not just from the Russians; no, it was more than that. Sometimes—maybe when I turned my head just so and caught a glimpse of something as the train rushed through a wooded landscape—sometimes I saw a baby being thrown into the air and shot like a bird. When this happened, my heart would pound in my chest and a scream would rise in my throat and I would cry out to myself, Will I see this forever? Will I ever escape this vision?” 

Here Irena realizes that even though the war is over, she can’t stop reliving the terrible things she’s seen. Irena feels that she has little conscious control over these images, as they seem to slip into her mind unbidden. She wonders if she will ever find a way to stop replaying these visions, as until she does so, a part of her will always be trapped in the war.

“It must be that each of them relived one scene over and over, just as I did: the moment a body fell to the ground; the moment an aged parent was sacrificed; a moment of betrayal, a moment of dreadful understanding. We were all doomed to remember.”

Irena realizes that she is not the only one burdened with a vision she can’t shake off—rather, every survivor carries their memories with them, images of evil and loss that, once seen, can’t be unseen. Irena seems to wonder here how the survivors will move forward to create new lives after the war, as they are all “doomed” to relive their pasts. 

“Like a fledgling pushed from its nest, I had been forced to learn how to fly.”

At the end of the memoir, the author reaches the culmination of the bird imagery she’s developed throughout the book. Like a bird pushed from the nest too young, Irena has been forced by the war to mature when she should have remained innocent. However, these hardships have also taught her to fly, and to soar to heights few people will ever reach.

“Yes, it was me, a girl, with nothing but my free will clutched in my hand like an amber bead. God gave me this free will for my treasure.” 

While Irena believes that she is saved by God and given the purpose of rescuing others, she does not see herself as a passive pawn controlled by God. Rather, God has given her free will so that she can choose to help—and even after all the suffering she’s gone though, she recognizes this freedom as a “treasure” she will continue to use to do good in the world.