Irene Gut Opdyke Essay

~The Girl~

The word ‘Holocaust’ is from the Greek words holos (whole) and kaustos (burned) which were described as sacrificial offering burned on an altar. Sadly, holocaust is known for the 6 million Jews that were killed by Adolf Hitler. Irene Gut Opdyke was one of the few survivors that took a huge place during the massacres against the Germans. I truly believed she deserves the award due to her willing to share her story after 30 years and heroic.

Hitler was an Anti-Semitic leader that had tremendous hatred towards the Jews life because he believed they were a threat to the Germans.

Hitler violated the Treaty of Versaille by invading Poland in 1939.Irene Gut Opdyke was a teenager she worked at a polish hospital helped out the wounded soldiers but was captured beaten and raped by the Soviet soldiers before being recaptured by the Germans.

She was put to work in a munitions factory.Later on, this german officer took an interest in her and took her out of the factory and gave her a position in a kitchen of a hotel for Nazis.
When she was there she had become friends with 12 Jews and hid them in the officers villa.
Then the officer found out her secret. She pleaded mercy to not kill them but to take her life instead. This shows a lot of characters she was willing to give

her life to save other people.
The officer saw how desperate she was, so he decide to keep her secret as long as she became her mistress and she said yes .i don't think many people would do this if they were put to a test.Later she fled into the forest with the Jewish people and managed to survive. Once the war end, she moved to the US, married and became a citizen.

As I look back at her story I chose her for three main reasons. One she was a strong woman too had to pass that at a young age,two she was kind enough to save other people even though she didn't have power what so ever but she managed to save other people,and three she decide to live her life at the end she could had given up long time ago but did not .

The other 3 candidates also deserve recognition because they all saved as many Jews they could.Feng Shan Ho jeopardized his career without recognition or compensation by issuing approx.

5000 visas of Jews fleeing Germany .The sad thing about this is that know one knew what he did until his duaghter Manila published his story.Gilberto Bosques Saldivar helped 40,000 Jews and for doing so he went to jail for an year. Col Jose Arturo Castellanos Contreras an Salvadoran diplomat in Geneva who saved 30,000-50,000 Jews by issuing citizenship documents .The one thing i really admire from all 4 candidates they did anything to help

Jews.