Irene Gut Opdyke Quotes & Sayings

You must understand that I did not become a resistance fighter, a smuggler of Jews, a defier of the SS and the Nazis, all at once. One's first steps are always small: I had begun by hiding food under a fence — Irene Gut Opdyke

Every day now, I found a chance to slip outside and leave food under the fence. I knew it was a drop in the ocean, but I could not do nothing. — Irene Gut Opdyke

If we were stopped and questioned, I always smiled at the officers, and they always smiled back. In my heart, I was seeing them dead. But on my face, I was an open invitation. If you are only a girl, this is how you destroy your enemies. — Irene Gut Opdyke

In my fantasies, I was always caught up in heroic struggles, and I saw myself saving lives, sacrificing myself for others. I had far loftier ambitions than mere romance. — Irene Gut Opdyke

We did not speak of what we had seen. At the time, to speak of it seemed worse than sacrilege: We had witnessed a thing so terrible that it acquired a dreadful holiness. It was a miracle of evil. It was not possible to say with words what we had witnessed, and so we kept it safely guarded until the time we could bring it out, and show it to others, and say, 'Behold. This is the worst thing man can do'. — Irene Gut Opdyke