That damn WaterTower Backhoe and Tractor Society wouldn't let us have sex with a Nazi to save our own or others' lives! Grrrrrrr
YORBA LINDA, Calif. - (AP) -- Irene Gut Opdyke, a native of Poland who agreed to serve as a German officer's mistress to save the life of Jews during the Holocaust, has died. She was 85.
Opdyke died Saturday from complications related to a fall at her Yorba Linda home last month, said her daughter, Jeannie Smith of Washington state.
A firm believer that one person really can make a difference, Opdyke spent the last two decades of her life teaching that lesson to thousands of Orange County school children.
Opdyke's 1999 book, ''In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Survivor,'' is being turned into a movie.
''Her spirit seemed so sweet and gentle,'' said Larry Feldman leader of the Shuvah Israel congregation, which is arranging services for Opdyke. ``I just fell in love with her. Then, when I heard what she did, I was just in awe.''
In 1940, Opdyke was a teenager walking to work in Tarnopol, Poland, when she saw a Nazi soldier pull a baby from his mother's arms, throw him in the air and shoot him like a bird.
'I asked God, 'Where are you?' because I didn't believe God could do something like that -- children, little babies,'' Opdyke recalled in a 1998 Associated Press interview. ``I threw a tantrum against God, saying 'I don't believe in you.'
``But in the morning there was an answer in my heart and in my soul: God gave us free will to do good or bad. That is up to us to choose what we want to be. I asked God for the opportunity to help, even if my life depended on it.''
A few months later, Opdyke, who was born a Catholic, got her chance. She befriended 12 Jews who were forced to work as dressmakers and tailors for the Nazis. She hid them in the laundry room of a confiscated villa in Poland where she worked as a housekeeper for a German officer.
''We became friends and they trusted me,'' she said. ``They asked for help and what could I do?''
When the German officer was out, her friends would go upstairs and help her with the housework.
Usually, she would close the front door and the officer would have to ring the doorbell, giving them time to run back into the basement. Except one day she forgot to close the door.
''He got white, shaky and ran to his office where the telephone was,'' Opdyke said. ``I knew he would call the head of the Gestapo. I ran after him, I cried, I kissed his hand, I pleaded, I prayed.''
The 70-year-old major said he would keep her secret only if she became his mistress.
''I had to give myself to him. It was not easy,'' she said.
Whenever Opdyke overheard Nazi plans to destroy Jewish ghettos, she warned residents.
She also purloined food and supplies that she would deliver to about 150 Polish partisans and Jews hiding in a nearby forest.
In early 1944, Opdyke and her friends fled to the forest when they learned the Russians were advancing on Poland. They stayed there for about 10 days until the Russians gained control.
The Israeli government named Opdyke a ''Righteous Gentile,'' planting a tree in her honor in 1982 at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
Opdyke is survived by her daughter, two grandsons, three great-grandchildren and her sisters in Poland.
This woman didn't get her morality out of a book, and she was a better person for it.