Amazon.com: Customer reviews: In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer

Top positive review

Absolutely phenomenal

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 2, 2022

One of my all time favorite books. As the descendant of a Holocaust survivor, this book gave me a glimpse into what her life could’ve been like. The symbolism was absolutely amazing. It definitely includes some strong themes though.
STRONG THEMES: SA, violence, loss of loved ones, lack of food

Top critical review

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Martha Kavanaugh Hunt

Another Holocaust account but different

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 16, 2014

I have read many books on the Holocaust, among other things, for educational purposes - history tends to repeat itself when history is ignored! This story is a bit unique in that it focuses on the many honorable Germans who helped rescue and save. Not written in a way that I could call it a page-turner per se, but worth reading. All of them are!

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From the United States

catherine gilbert

Absolutely phenomenal

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 2, 2022

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 4, 2022

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This book talked about the story of Irene Gut Opdyke who was a student nurse during the time of the holocaust and it goes into great detail about the horrific events Irene encountered at that time

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Robert J. Mack

One Person Can Make a Difference

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 28, 2014

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Imagine that you are a 16-year-old Polish girl in a small rural town in eastern Poland called Kozienice enjoying a pretty, bucolic, and sweet life--that is until September 1, 1939. That's the day that Hitler launched his blitzkrieg or lightning war against Poland and overran the country in 18 days. What can you do? How can you possibly help your countrymen and countrywomen fight the Nazi onslaught and defeat the occupation? The answer to that existential question is the major reason why that young girl, known then as Irene Gut, decided, when she was much older (76 years old) and called Irene Opdyke, to tell the story of her life during that horrific time. She was helped in the telling by author Jennifer Armstrong. The book is In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer, and it is a powerful account of one person's bravery in the face of unimaginable hate and violence. Wholesale murder, rape, and torture haunted those memories.

Irene risked her life many times to protect Jews she was hiding from imminent destruction. She is inspiring because she wanted to fight to eliminate an evil, whether in the form of the Nazis or the Communists, and if she couldn't do that, then she wanted to protect and save those who were being exterminated by that evil. We can all learn valuable lessons from her moral courage and her cunning determination. This is a remarkable book about a heroine whose name was enshrined in 1982 in the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem as one of the Righteous Among Nations for her heroic acts during the Holocaust.

The writing style is at times poetic, but the real advantage of this autobiography is Irene's remembering and describing how she felt and what she thought as world events were swirling about her while she was entangled in the thicket of the Nazi cruelty in Poland. It is a narrative about survival and charity and goodness. She wanted her family to survive the terror, and she also witnessed how the Jews were brutalized and murdered and therefore was compelled to help them survive the Nazi inhumanity. This is a highly recommended book.

18 people found this helpful

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cher

I love learning about real people in a historical setting where the writing reels you in.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 7, 2022

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This is about a heroine who helped save Jews from the Nazis. Courage and will. An amazing story and person. Told extremely well.

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Lin McMullin

Better than fiction

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 28, 2022

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I read a lot of spy stories and just finished on that takes place in Poland in WW II - the same times as “In My Hands.” This history is far better than any fiction. Simply but well written, it tells the story of a woman in her early twenties who survived the Russians, the Germans, and the Russians again and saved dozens of lives almost entirely without help from the beginning of the war to its end. She just didn’t give up. A true hero. I will read this again, more than once.

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Elizabeth V. Padilla

The Other Irene

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 27, 2021

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After reading a fictional treatment of the life of Irene Sendler, I found this book here at Amazon, believing it to be a more factual account. Just a few pages into the book I discovered this was about another brave woman, Irene Gut Opdyke. Like Irena Sendler, Irene Gut Opyke was named one of the Righteous Among the Nations and was asked to plant a tree at the Yad Vashem Memorial in the State of Israel. This Polish woman risked her life saving Jews during the Nazi occupation of her native Poland. Collaborating with author Jennifer Armstrong, Irene relates her story in clear, sometimes lyrical prose. The world must not forget such brave people; the reader is inspired just by reading IN MY HANDS to seek ways in which to make the world a better place.

8 people found this helpful

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Jeanne

Inspirational Story of a Courageous Young Woman

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 6, 2020

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Irene was a Polish Catholic girl when the Nazis invaded Poland. She and her family were just trying to get through the war without starving when she took a job at a restaurant frequented by SS officers that was just outside the ghetto fence. She never really "decided" to be a holocaust rescuer. Her compassion and strong sense of right and wrong led her "do the right thing." At first she snuck leftover food out of the restaurant and pushed it under the ghetto fence. One thing led to another and another until she was hiding 13 people in the basement of the Nazi officer's house (she was his housekeeper) and ferrying supplies to partisans in the forest. Irene writes what she was feeling (fear, guilt) as well as what she was doing. She had to do things that were "wrong" under most circumstances and believed she was committing sins, but did it anyway. The story follows Irene through to the end of the war and beyond.

9 people found this helpful

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Heart wrenching

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 14, 2022

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Amazing story, amazing woman. Nobody should ever have to have a story like this. What a truly wonderful person she was. I certainly will not forget her or her brave actions.

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Deb

An unbelievable true story of heroism and survival!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 3, 2022

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This story is a first hand account of a young Polish woman’s heroism and how she saved 100’s of Jewish lives - including 12 people that she hid in a German general’s house!!

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Linda J. Layton

well written

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 20, 2022

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Loved this book so well written and keeps you interested

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