E-book
In my hands memories of a Holocaust rescuer
Record details
- ISBN: 9780307557025 (electronic bk. : Adobe Digital Editions)
- ISBN: 0307557022 (electronic bk. : Adobe Digital Editions)
-
Physical Description:
electronic resource
remote - Publisher: New York : Laurel-Leaf, [2008?]
Content descriptions
| General Note: | Title from eBook information screen. |
| Formatted Contents Note: | Tears -- I was almost fast enough -- Finding wings -- Where could I come to rest -- Amber. |
| System Details Note: | Requires Adobe Digital Editions (file size: 2320 KB). |
Search for related items by subject
| Genre: | Electronic books. |
Search for related items by series
Electronic resources
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Monthly Selections - #1 June 1999
/*Starred Review*/ Gr. 9^-12. Irene Gut was 17 and a student nurse when the Nazis invaded Poland. Within a year's time, she had experienced more horror than most people see in a lifetime, including being raped by Russian soldiers. Irene's tangled journey eventually takes her to a Nazi complex, where she is forced to work as a waitress. The building abuts a Jewish ghetto, and Irene starts leaving food for the residents. This first step toward helping the beleaguered Jews leads to Irene's ever-increasing involvement: passing information, then smuggling Jews from a work camp into the forest, and, in her boldest, most dangerous act, hiding 10 Jewish men and women in the basement of the Nazi major for whom she works. When the major, who has always fancied the pretty, Aryan-looking Irene, learns of her deception, he shockingly agrees to keep her secret--if she will become his mistress. This Irene does willingly to keep her charges alive. The first-person narrative pours out in a hurried rush as if the young Irene is almost trying to rid herself of her memories as well as tell her story. Although this technique does not allow readers to know any of the other people very well (the Jews hiding in the basement are almost indistinct), it effectively captures the bedlam and turmoil that is war, where every decision could be one's last. Still, there are certain images that stand out in relief: Irene's insistence that one of the Jewish women in hiding continue her pregnancy, and the horror of seeing a Jewish baby thrown in the air and shot down like a bird. There are so many Holocaust books these days, each touching in its own way. Opdyke's is special, not only because of its unique perspective (and its focus on the years directly before and after the war when Irene spied against the Russians) but also because it speaks so personally to teenagers. Irene is one of them. The fear, horror, worry, and bravery she recounts so affectingly could have been theirs. The question becomes more than what would you do? It is also who will you be if you survive? ((Reviewed June 1 & 15, 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews - Horn Book Guide Reviews : Horn Book Guide Reviews 2000 Spring
Polish teenager Irene Gutowna's story--from happy eldest of four daughters to laborer in a German officer's mess hall to member of the Resistance--makes for gripping reading. Despite Armstrong's sometimes excessive novelistic flourishes, the power of Irene's true story keeps the reader spellbound.Copyright 2000 Horn Book Guide Reviews - Horn Book Magazine Reviews : Horn Book Magazine Reviews 1999 #4
Many wartime memories, including a brutal rape at the hands of the advancing Russian soldiers, haunt Polish teenager Irene Gutowna. But none more than the vision of a Jewish baby thrown into the air like a bird and shot. Irene's story-from happy eldest of four daughters to laborer in a German officer's mess hall to member of the Resistance-makes for gripping reading. Witness to the Germans' answer to the "Jewish problem," Irene begins to "not do nothing." She works, at first in small ways, against its evil; ultimately, she risks her own life by hiding twelve Jewish friends in the home of the Nazi major who employs her. Irene takes joy in the secret knowledge that, because of her, her town is not judenrein (free of Jews) as the Nazis proclaim. When the major discovers her betrayal, the reader's breath stops. Unfortunately, in an attempt to transform Irene's life into art, Jennifer Armstrong imposes upon it language whose beauty works against the horrific events she narrates, lessening rather than extending its force. Perhaps inspired by the fragment of the poem "Portrait of a Woman" by Wislawa Szmborska that serves as epigraph (she "holds in her hands a sparrow with a broken wing"), Armstrong creates bird and flight imagery that gives structure to a story whose truest understanding evades any meaning or structure. But despite the novelistic flourishes, the power of Irene's true story keeps the reader spellbound. The postscript that details, in words and photographs, the bittersweet histories of Irene and her Jewish "family" comes as a welcome relief. s.p.b. Copyright 1999 Horn Book Magazine Reviews - School Library Journal Reviews : SLJ Reviews 1999 June
Gr 7 UpNo matter how many Holocaust stories one has read, this one is a must, for its impact is so powerful. Irene Gut was a 17-year-old nurse in training, a good Catholic girl, when the war began. Nothing in her sheltered upbringing had prepared her for the horrors she encountered when first the Russians and then the Germans took over, not only her beloved Poland, but her life. She was raped and witnessed murder, starvation, and the systematic elimination of an entire people. However, because of her looksblond, blue-eyedshe enjoyed relative security working as a waitress in a Nazi officers dining room. She was able to use her position to help not only her sister but many Jews as well. At great risk, she hid 12 Jews in the basement of a Nazi majors home, where she worked as a housekeeper, and helped many others by supplying information, food, and blankets. Opdykes remarkable story is simply told, with clarity and feeling. Her enormous courage is all the more compelling because the events in her life are true, and her transformation from an innocent schoolgirl to a determined resistance fighter will inform and inspire readers.Cyrisse Jaffee, formerly at Newton Public Schools, MA Copyright 1999 School Library Journal Reviews
