The Myth of Irene Gut Opdyke

One of the odder things to do with the ‘Holocaust’ narrative is that in order to keep it ‘relevant’ so-to-speak we are treated to frequent re-runs of the narrative in new form but we are always told that the jews ‘were persecuted for no reason’ (not true) and the ‘Holocaust rescuer’ always finds some ridiculous ingenious way to hide the jews from the almost comic ridiculous stupidity of the Germans; who are at the same time portrayed as extremely efficient killers but also abject morons who couldn’t spot a likely hiding place if it was in pink tutu dancing in front of them.

That we are to be treated to yet another such film in the form of ‘Irene’s Vow’ gives me a timely opportunity to dissect the story of the protagonist Irene Gut Opdyke (nee Irene Gut) to see if it really stands up to any sort of basic historical scrutiny.

Renee Ghert-Zand in the ‘Times of Israel’ has helpfully recently published an extensive article on Opdyke and her ‘story’ which enables us to examine her claims. (1)

To begin with we read that:

‘At the outbreak of the war, Opdyke was 19-year-old Irena Gut, a Polish nursing student whose education abruptly ended when she was sent into forced labor by the Germans.’

This is a promising start Opdyke as a young nursing student could well have been used for forced labour by the new German authorities.

This further supported by Ghert-Zand’s more detailed account of how this came to be:

‘The film begins with Gut, excellently played by Canadian actor Sophie Nélisse, volunteering as a nurse in eastern Poland after the German invasion on September 1, 1939. When the area is invaded by the Soviets a few weeks later, Gut returns to her hometown further west in Poland to find that it has been conquered by the Germans, with her parents and four younger sisters gone.

One day, while at church, the local residents are rounded up for forced labor. Gut is assigned to a munitions factory.’

All is fine here in that as an enemy non-combatant – not a civilian since Opdyke appears to have volunteered to serve in Poland’s war effort as a nurse - Opdyke could have been used as forced labour by the German authorities in Poland, but the fact that she was a nursing student somewhat militates against this because it seems extremely unlikely that the German authorities would have assigned a nurse – especially one who we later discover is anaemic – to work in a munitions factory when there were plenty of Polish men who could have been conscripted to perform such work better.

The more likely scenario would have been that as a skilled worker – a nurse – then Opdyke would have been conscripted into a medical or first aid facility of some kind not rather pointlessly into a munitions factory. Although it makes a lot more sense if she’d actually been conscripted as forced labour into a munitions factory’s first aid or medical team to deal with the accidents that were then notorious among munitions factory workers in war-time due to high production demands and the unstable/explosive/corrosive nature of the material they work with.

Ghert-Zand continues and Opdyke’s story becomes more and more fanciful:

‘Exhausted and anemic, Gut collapses at the feet of a high-ranking Nazi officer. When she pleads with him, saying that she is a good worker, he transfers her to a German military barracks in Tarnopol (today Ternopil in Ukraine), where she prepares meals in the kitchen and serves them in the dining room.’

Two points immediately catch our eye when we read this which is why – for example – she’d been conscripted to work in a munitions factory in the first place if she were anaemic and seemingly rather delicate in general.

In the second we are forced to question the plausibility of Opdyke’s claim that she just ‘happened’ to ‘collapse’ at the ‘feet of a high-ranking Nazi officer’ then proceeds to plead about how ‘good a worker’ she is to him. Opdyke’s vagueness is in itself suggests that this is likely an invention – in part or in whole – because we immediately wonder what a ‘high-ranking Nazi officer’ was doing in a munitions factory in Poland and why a delicate female worker was allowed to randomly collapse at his feet.

It is perfectly possible but the lack of detail about what Opdyke means by ‘a high-ranking Nazi officer’ and why that officer was in said factory (i.e., was he touring it and if so, why?) or how Opdyke just happened to ‘collapse at his feet’ necessarily suggests that Opdyke is covering up how and why she ended up as a cook/waitress in a German military barracks in Tarnopol using this romantic and possible but not very plausible story.

My guess would be that Opdyke volunteered for service at the German barracks at Tarnopol while she was working in some function – likely medical – at the munitions factory with the help of a German official or Wehrmacht officer (i.e., a ‘high-ranking Nazi officer’ in a very general sense) based at or near the barracks – who she may or may not have been sleeping with – and was assigned the cushy job of a cook/waitress and carried on her (probably sexual) relationship with said official/officer (and possibly others) while she was there.

This suggests that Opdyke was hardly the Polish ‘resistance’ figure she implies she was but rather was supportive of - or not really against - the German war effort and then after the war simply rewrote her own history to edit out her consensual amorous encounters with the German officials/officers and the resultant personal benefits that she would have accrued.

Indicative of this is Ghert-Zand’s next three paragraphs:

‘Gut is also put in charge of and befriends 11 Jews working in the laundry and tailoring shop downstairs. Her ability to eavesdrop on Nazi officers discussing the war’s progress and their orders for eradicating the Jews proves critically important for these Jews as time goes on.

Gut vowed to save a life if she ever could after witnessing a German soldier brutally murder a baby in front of its mother before killing the mother.

In tune with her “pure faith,” as Gordon described it, Gut prayed for a solution when she learned that the local ghetto was to be imminently liquidated.’

In other words: Opdyke was put in charge 11 jewish workers.

This doesn’t sound like a ‘forced labourer’ now: does it?

It does however sound like Opdyke was a trusted member of the staff at the German military barracks at Tarnopol.

The idea that she was able to eavesdrop on ‘Nazi officers’ also necessarily suggests as much since the 11 jews she was in charge of apparently didn’t have the same ability to do so.

Now we know there were ‘no orders for eradicating the jews’ – this is a central plank of the modern ‘Holocaust’ thesis – so Opdyke almost certainly didn’t hear what she claims to have heard, but instead has either added in this detail or heard accounts of the anti-partisan activities of the Einsatzgruppen and Sonderkommandos from the ‘Nazi officers’ and transposed them to become ‘orders for eradicating the Jews’.

Further the idea that Opdyke’s ‘witnessed’ a ‘German soldier brutally murder a baby in front of its mother before killing the mother’ cannot be admitted without evidence as it is an out-of-place assertion that is almost certainly a propaganda claim – common during both the First and Second World Wars – meant to ‘explain’ her move from covert to more overt ‘resistance’ activities and also make her seem like she was motivated by her ‘pure faith’ rather than more practical considerations.

Further evidence of this is provided by Ghert-Zand next four paragraphs:

‘In the ensuing days, as Gut prepares the villa for occupancy, she realizes she could hide her Jewish friends in the cellar. After she smuggles them in, they discover that the villa, built by a Jewish family, has a secret hiding place accessible from the basement.

“My mother recognized that it was a Jewish home because she saw it had a mezuzah on its doorpost. Growing up, she had Jewish friends from school and the neighborhood. Also, her family lived on the town’s main street and they would take in travelers, including Jews,” said Gut’s daughter Jeannie Opdyke Smith.

Against all odds, the quick-thinking young woman keeps the Jews (including a twelfth taken in later) safe despite many close calls. Guided by her Catholic values and optimism, she is also influential in the decision of the pregnant couple, Ida and Lazar Haller, to not abort their baby despite the danger its birth would pose to all.

Not all goes to plan, and Rügemer, having discovered some of the hidden Jews, extorts Gut, making her his sex slave. The self-sacrificing Gut does what is necessary to safeguard her Jewish friends’ lives for many more months, until they can safely escape to the forest and join the partisans as the Russians advance on Tarnopol. Ida Lazar gives birth in the forest in May 1944 to a baby boy she and her husband name Roman.’

We can see from this all of a sudden, we have a ‘divine coincidence’ in that Opdyke discovers along with the 11 jews that the villa they’ve just moved in to was previously ‘owned by a jewish family’ and had a ‘secret hiding place’ in the basement.

This is possible but not plausible as one wonders why the jewish family had a ‘secret hiding place’ in their basement in their villa: what purpose was it supposed to serve? Why did no one else seem to know about it?

That aside we suddenly see Opdyke admit she was in a sexual relationship with a ‘Nazi officer’ who the film calls Rügemer but then claims she was his ‘sex slave’ because he’d apparently ‘discovered’ ‘some’ of the hidden jews. This simply doesn’t make any sense; since as I’ve already explained Opdyke’s story only really makes sense if she’d been sleeping with German officers in order to get preferential treatment and facilitate her transfer from the Polish munitions factory to the German barracks at Tarnopol.

The reality is probably far simpler in that Opdyke was an active Polish collaborator who ran a staff of jewish workers for the German military and was in an active sexual relationship with German officials and/or officers, which she then retconned into a narrative of how she’d ‘saved’ the jews from the ‘evil Nazis’ because of the Catholic faith.

This is suggested by Ghert-Zand’s comment that:

‘Gut’s sacrifice is repaid by some of these Jews when at the end of the film she is caught by the Soviets, accused of being a German collaborator, and sent to a concentration camp. Without her friends’ ingenuity, she would have either languished behind the Iron Curtain or been killed.’

Why would Opdyke have been accused of being a German collaborator and sent to a Soviet gulag if she hadn’t been and been able to prove the opposite?

This is what I mean in that Opdyke’s narrative only makes sense if she was a Polish collaborator with the Germans and had to revise her ‘story’ to make herself out to be a pro-jewish Polish Catholic ‘Holocaust Rescuer’ rather than the more likely – given the fact that Poland was almost as anti-jewish as the Third Reich till years after the Second World War - pro-German anti-jewish Polish Catholic as also suggested by the fact that Opdyke asserts that she was ‘beaten, gang-raped and left for dead’ by a bunch of Red Army soldiers in 1940. (3)

Dan Gordon’s comment that ‘the story is so improbable, yet it is true’ is only half right: (2) Opdyke’s story is only ‘improbable’ if you take what she has to say at face value rather than critically evaluate it and when you do so it suggests the opposite of what she claims she was doing during the Second World War.

References

(1) https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-12-jews-survived-the-holocaust-hidden-by-a-maid-in-a-nazi-officers-basement/

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.