Gut Opdyke Irena

Gut-Opdyke, Irena Franka Wilner, together with 300 other Jews, was sent from the Tarnopol ghetto to a camp near a military garage (Heeres Kraftsfahr park), where she was put to work in the laundry room of the officers’ club. The local employment office (Arbeitsamt) appointed Irena Gut, a young Pole, as supervisor of the laundry. From the day she started her job, Gut helped the Jewish inmates, supplying them with food and cigarettes, which she obtained by exploiting her position as principal purchaser for the club. One of Gut’s functions was to look after the German commander, Major Eduard Ruegemer (recognized as Righteous in 2012). Through him Gut obtained passes for Jews, to allow them to make purchases on the Aryan side of the city. The commander also allowed the families of his Jewish prisoners to move into the camp, thereby sparing them the Aktionen that took place from time to time in the ghetto. Even after 1943, when the camp became a Judenlager (Jewish camp) and was made into a subsidiary of the Janowska camp in Lwow, Ruegemer and Gut continued to look after the Jews. When, on July 23, 1943, the Germans began liquidating the camp, Gut helped many of the inmates find hiding places. Ruegemer drove others to the forest, where they dug a bunker for themselves and survived with the help of Gut who brought them provisions and maintained contact with them. Others – including Franka Wilner and her husband, and the Heller couple – were hidden in the laundry room. Others were hidden in a villa that had been requisitioned by the German major. Gut saw to all their needs, and courageously defied the threats of various blackmailers who suspected she was helping Jews. In March 1944, shortly before the Red Army liberated the area, the Gestapo arrested Gut, but she escaped. After the war, most of the survivors immigrated to Israel and in 1982, invited Gut to come and visit them in Jerusalem. On July 8, 1982, Yad Vashem recognized Irena Opdyke (née Gut) as RighteousAmong the Nations.