In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer

by Irene Gut Opdyke

  Their crimes were announced. The Jews were enemies of the Reich, and the Poles had been caught harboring them. For the Jews, a sentence of death was the law. For the Poles, the punishment for helping a Jew was infamous: It, too, was a sentence of death. No trial. No mercy.

  It took no time to hang them. No time at all. First these people were alive. Then they were dead. It seemed impossible that it could be such a simple matter to end their lives; and yet it was. We in the crowd stood mute, watching the bodies swing, watching the children's small feet dangle in the air. I had heard them choking. Now it was silent.

  I might have fallen if the people around me were not pressing so close. When the shouts to clear the square rang out, everyone moved, and I somehow stumbled along with them. I cannot remember finding my way back to the villa, my limbs frozen with the cold and the brutality I had seen. Without thinking, I unlocked the door and shoved the key into my pocket with a shaking hand.

  As always, I opened the cellar door, but turned away without speaking. In a few moments, Fanka and Clara came upstairs, and found me standing in the kitchen, staring at my packages.

  “Irene! What is it? What's wrong?” Clara asked, immediately coming to my side.

  “I—I don't feel well,” I whispered. I pressed my arms to my side to keep from shivering.

  Fanka took my hands and rubbed them between hers. “You're frozen through,” she scolded. “What have you been doing?”

  As if through a fog, I noticed a sound from the hallway, and before I could speak, the kitchen door swung open and the major came in.

  There are these moments before calamity strikes—before the dropped crystal shatters on the floor, before the car's fender smashes against the racing dog, before the drunken man's hand strikes the child's face—when time stretches out and each second is wrapped in silence.

  And then the world crashes.

  Clara and Fanka and I stood facing Major Rügemer like statues, and the major stared at each of us in utter astonishment. His face began to tremble with emotion, but without a word, he turned on his heel and walked out. The kitchen door swung back and forth on its hinge. The library door slammed shut across the hall.

  “Holy God,” Fanka whispered.

  I banged through the kitchen door and ran across the hallway and into the library.

  “Herr Major!” I cried out.

  He stopped his pacing and whirled around at me. “Irene! What in God's name have you done to me?” he shouted.

  “They are innocent people!” I stumbled over my words in my panic, and began to cry. “They've done nothing! How could I stand by and let them be killed? What else could I do? I have no place of my own to hide them, or I never would have brought them here! Do not turn them in, I beg you! Do not stain your hands with innocent blood—I know you are a good man! This war will soon be—”

  “Enough,” he interrupted. He was red with fury—and fear. “How could you deceive me, Irene? I trusted you. I gave you a home, I took you under my protection. I am a German officer! You have ruined me!”

  “Punish me, Herr Major. I take all the blame—but let them escape!” I was sobbing, and I fell to the floor at his feet. “I beg you. In God's holy name.”

  He looked away, his chin trembling. “Let me think. I must have time to think.”

  I grabbed at his hand and kissed it, but he yanked it away from me and strode out of the room. As the front door slammed, I sank down with my face on the carpet, retching with sobs. “Mamusia! Tatuś!” I choked. “God help me!”

  I had to drag myself to my feet and out of the library. I knew my friends in the cellar must be terrified. Groping like a blind woman, I fumbled open the cellar door and made my way down the stairs. The group faced me, ashen with fear. They were wearing their coats—even Miriam stood, huddled in a shawl and ready to flee.

  “Don't leave the house,” I told them. “Rokita's men will pick you up in a minute if you go out in daylight.” I began shoving them toward the furnace room, turning their stony bodies ahead of me.

  “But Irene—this is madness,” Lazar said.

  “Get into the bunker and wait for me—the major may not act right away. He doesn't know about this place. Wait for me three days. If I don't come back for you, get out through the coal chute at night and try to get to Janówka.”

  I had to return to the factory that evening, as usual. As I walked along the frozen streets, I could only guess that I was walking to my death. Wild thoughts of escape thrashed in my head like birds trapped in a net, but my faint hope that the major would be merciful kept me from running to the forest then and there.

  The major sat alone during dinner, drinking more than usual and refusing to look at me at all. Another officer came to speak to him at one point, but Major Rügemer waved him away without speaking. After my tears, I had become calm and resigned; I could only wait for whatever was in store for me. I returned to the villa immediately after dinner, and sat in the library with my hands folded carefully in my lap. A cold wind pressed against the house, and the blackout shades moved in the draft. The radiators clanked and hissed.

  At last, the major came home. I stood up when I heard the door bang open. His footsteps across the tiles of the hall were shuffling and uneven. It was obvious that he was very drunk. When he opened the library door he stood swaying slightly, looking at me for a long time without speaking.

  “Would you like some coffee, Herr Major?” I asked.

  He kept staring at me. “No.”

  My uneasiness grew. I made a movement toward the door, but he stepped in front of me. “Herr Major—”

  He reeled toward me and grabbed my arms, pulling me toward himself. “I'll keep your goddamned secret, Irene.”

  His breath smelled of vodka and tobacco, and I cowered before him, my mind spinning. The loose skin of his throat had a gray stubble, and there was a tiny scab where he had nicked himself shaving. I knew what was coming, but I could not believe it. I could not believe it! His hands found the buttons of my blouse, and he began kissing my mouth and my throat, mumbling my name. I tried pushing away from him, but he held me tight.

  “I've wanted you for so long, Irene. Do you think I'll keep your secret for nothing?”

  I felt a fresh wave of panic. “Major Rügemer, please—”

  “I want you willingly, Irene. That is my price.”

  Tears spilled over my cheeks. I was lost. He took my hand, and led me up the stairs.

  Shame and humiliation flooded me the moment I opened my eyes the next morning and found myself in his bed. My whole body cringed, and I balled the edge of the sheet in my fists, groaning. The bathroom door opened. The major came in, buttoning his tunic.

  He stood at the side of the bed looking down at me. He smiled uncertainly. “Tell me it wasn't that bad,” he said in a small voice.

  I couldn't answer. When he sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand on my hip, it was all I could do not to fling myself away from him.

  “I'll protect you, Irene. I love you; you must have realized that before now. I couldn't let any harm come to you.”

  I forced myself to nod.

  “And your friends will be safe here. I won't turn those women in, although I risk my own life. You understand that, don't you?”

  I forced myself to nod again, and he got up heavily and left the room. A few moments later, the front door shut. Then I grabbed my clothes and raced downstairs in my bare feet. In my own bathroom, I cranked on the faucets of the tub. As the steam billowed up around me, I sat on the edge of the tub, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes until stars burst inside my head. The tub filled. I sank into water so hot it made me cry, and my tears plinked into the water as I scrubbed myself. This was worse than rape.

  I knew I had to bear this shame alone. I could never tell my friends how I had bought their safety. Their honor would never allow them to hold me to this bargain.

  And as I dressed myself, I wondered how the major's honor would allow him to make such a barg
ain. I had always felt that behind the uniform was a decent man. I had never seen him do anything cruel or rash or give a reprimand where it wasn't deserved. But I had banked on his affection for me for too long, used him for too long. I could not be surprised now that it had come to this accounting.

  When I finally went downstairs and called my friends in from the bunker under the gazebo, I was composed enough to give an entirely believable story. While they stamped their feet to warm up, I explained: The major had pitied them, and was sure the war would be over soon. He had seen only Fanka and Clara, and did not know how many people were actually down there. Stay put. Stay calm. I'll make it all right.

  It was hard to tell if they believed me, but they had no choice. They trusted me, so they knew they were safe, but it obviously puzzled them. I got out of there as quickly as I could, so as not to face any of their questions. Then I put on my coat and wrapped a scarf around my head and shoulders, and went out.

  The person I wanted to speak to was Father Joseph, but I couldn't get to the village at the edge of the forest that day. Instead, I found a church near Chopin Street, where a priest was saying mass for the first Sunday of Advent, the season of penitence. There were several people waiting to enter the confessional, and while I waited I whispered the Our Father under my breath. At last, my turn came, and I pulled the carved wooden door shut. Beyond the screen was the shadowy profile of the confessor.

  I mumbled my way through the first few sins that came to my lips—stealing food, lying, wishing for the deaths of my enemies—and as the priest began to mutter, “Te absolvo,” I interrupted him.

  “Father, there is something else,” I said, and when he nodded I drew a deep breath. “Father, I have become the mistress of a German officer in order to preserve the lives of my Jewish friends.”

  “My child, this is a mortal sin,” he said without hesitation.

  I frowned, and leaned closer to the screen. “But Father, if I don't do this, eleven people will lose their lives.”

  “If you do this, it is your immortal soul that you will lose. They are Jews.”

  There was a strange shifting in my head, as though a switch had been thrown. I pulled away from the screen, suddenly aware of the chill rising from the stone floor. From beyond the confessional, the murmuring chant of the celebrant at the altar was like the buzz of a fly beside my ear. There were dry coughs and shuffling footsteps from the congregants, and a piercing odor of wet wool and unwashed bodies.

  I looked at the profile of the confessor again through the screen. “Father, I cannot throw their lives away. Even for my own soul.”

  “Then I cannot give you absolution.”

  I shouldered open the door and burst out into the aisle of the church, walking quickly to put the confessional behind me. But I placed myself in God's hands all the same. 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.

  And so as the Christmas season got under way, there began for me one of the strangest episodes of the whole war. Major Rügemer, as docile as a lamb now that he “had” me, told me one evening when he came home that he saw no reason for “those women” to stay cooped up in the basement.

  “After all, I know they are there, so they may as well be comfortable,” he declared as he stomped snow from his boots. “Tell them they may come up. I don't mind.”

  I gave him an astonished look, which he met with a smile. “It's holiday time. We can all be cozy and company for each other.”

  “But—”

  “No one can see,” the major pointed out, gesturing at the blackout shades. “It's perfectly safe.”

  “Very well,” I said, almost in a daze. I went to the cellar door and opened it. “Clara! Fanka!”

  They both appeared at the bottom of the staircase. “Is he gone?” Fanka asked.

  I glanced back over my shoulder. The major had gone into the library. “He says you can come up and be comfortable any time he doesn't have company.”

  Lazar and some of the other men crowded around the girls. “Is he serious?” Thomas asked in a whisper.

  I couldn't help laughing. “Perfectly serious. Come on, girls. He wants to meet you. He really is very sweet.”

  Fanka and Clara came up the stairs, both looking rather worried but a little excited, too. There was almost a holiday mood as we crossed the hall and knocked on the library door.

  “Komml”

  Fanka looked pale, but she put a brave smile on her face. “You're sure about him?”

  “Positive. Let's go.”

  I led the way, and stepped to one side to introduce the girls. “Herr Major, this is Clara and Fanka.”

  “Guten Abend,” he said.

  Clara, being German, replied in kind, but Fanka looked a question at me. Ordinarily, we all spoke some combination of Polish and Yiddish to one another, and Yiddish was close to German in many ways. But Fanka was clearly nervous about saying the wrong thing.

  “He said good evening,” I told her. “Just like it sounds.”

  She smiled and made a slight curtsy. “Dobry wieczór,” she said in Polish.

  “If you'd like them to help you with housework or anything of that kind, I don't mind,” the major continued. “It wouldn't surprise me if they have been all along.”

  I held my hands up and shrugged.

  He laughed. “Come, come. Let's all be friendly. I will not bite, I promise.”

  Clara looked at me, shaking her head in amazement. “Now I've seen everything,” she said.

  Later that evening, when I waved good night to the girls from the top of the cellar stairs, I saw the men crowd around them to ask questions: We had been playing the piano and singing? And laughing? And had someone been dancing with the major? Fanka's and Clara's voices blended in with the others’ as they related their story, and I shut the door on them, feeling safe for the first time in years.

  But I was glad that they couldn't see the look on my face as I turned toward the stairs to the second floor. I went to bed—not in my own room, but in Major Rügemer's.

  Into the Forest

  The weather grew worse. My heart ached for my friends in the forest every time the wind howled around the chimney at night. I took them supplies whenever I could barter for the sleigh and get a day off. One day I was able to bring Hermann Morris back with me to join his wife, who was now much recovered. I had twelve people in my care, and I felt like a mother hen who cuddles a dozen chicks beneath her wings.

  And to my great joy, a letter arrived for me from Janina at my aunt Helen's. It was the first letter I had received, and I was surprised to get it at all, but I was grateful for the news. Janina was going to join the rest of the family, and sent her love and prayers. I read the letter so many times I knew it by heart, but I still treasured the sight of my beloved sister's handwriting. I traced the words with my finger, picturing her in my imagination as she wrote to me. My heart was very full, for I had so many emotions to contend with: unceasing anxiety, continuing shame at my relationship with the major, relief that my friends were made safe by my bargain, loneliness for my family—sometimes it made me dizzy to name all the feelings that struggled to be foremost in my heart.

  Nineteen forty-four arrived, and with it, renewed fighting on the Russian front. The battles were moving closer to our position all the time, and on some nights, when the town was bound up in the silence of deep cold, we could hear the faint, distant detonations of shelling to the east. People were beginning to leave Ternopol. Every night, in the officers’ dining room at the factory, there was muted speculation about whether the factory would be closed. Everyone waited for news from Berlin. Hitler was rumored to be acting unbalanced—paranoid and hysterical. The officers at HKP avoided looking at their picture of the Führer while they gossiped.
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  At the villa, Major Rügemer became increasingly distracted and preoccupied; to my relief, he was often too tired to ask me to share his bed. Over breakfast one morning in February, however, he suddenly set his coffee cup down with a crash and took my hand.

  “Irene, I have bad news to tell you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Berlin sent word. A rumor reached them that I have a Polish girlfriend. I have to dismiss you.”

  “But what about—” I could not help glancing at the door.

  “Get rid of them! Irene, I can protect you, but even I have limits!” he said angrily. “Of course, I'm very fond of the girls, but you must understand—they have to go.”

  “Of course,” I said. It did not even occur to me to wonder what would happen to me. All I could think about was smuggling twelve people out of the house when the entire countryside was in a state of high alert.

  “I have to go to Lvov today. I'll be gone for a few days,” the major continued as he rose to leave. “I want them gone when I come back.”

  “Yes, Herr Major.”

  “We all have to leave Ternopol quite soon, in any case. You do realize that. The Russians…”

  He picked up his dispatch case and left the house. While I cleaned up the kitchen, I thought through my options. At last, I went downstairs to deliver the news.

  “Irene's coming down,” Wilner called out as he saw me on the stairs.

  “Good morning, Irene,” Ida said. She eased herself into a chair, holding her belly: She was heavy with her growing baby.

  “I need everyone to listen,” I began, waiting as the others, one by one, put aside their books and their mending and came to join me. I looked from one face to another, finding smiles, or looks of concern, or grave nods.