"No matter how many Holocaust stories one has read, this one is a must, for its impact is so powerful."—
School Library Journal,
starred
I did not ask myself, "Should I do this?" but "How will I do this?"
Through this intimate and compelling memoir, we are witness to the growth of a hero. Much like The Diary of Anne Frank,
In My Hands
has become a profound testament to individual courage.
You must understand that I did not become a resistance fighter, a smuggler of Jews, a defierof the SS and the Nazis, all at once.
When the war began, Irene Gut was just seventeen: a student nurse, a Polish patriot, a good Catholic girl. Forced to work in a German officiers' dining hall, she learns how to fight back.
One's first steps are always small: I had begun by hiding food under a fence.
Irene eavesdropped on the German's plans. She smuggled people out of the work camp. And she hid twelve Jews in the basement of a Nazi major's home. To deliver her friends from evil, this young woman did whatever it took—even the impossible.