"In My Hands" review

Let me paint you a little picture. You are sixteen years old and you are leaving your family and friends to go away to school to become a nurse. Every thing is going wonderfully; until one day you wake up to hear that the country you live in and were raised in, not longer exists. It is plain and simply, not a country anymore. And you are now controlled by a leader who hates you and his ultimate plan is to rid the earth of anyone who is not "perfect." Do you return to your family? Or do you stay and help the war effort?

Well in Irene Gut Opdyke's memoir In My Hands, she tells of her decision of staying and helping. It is quite an incredible story too. She finds herself in the middle of a war zone, in the middle of hell. She is just a girl and instead of just trying to survive, she does what she can to help. At first she is aiding soldiers who are injured. But she is eventually captured and brought into German run facilities where she is more of a slave than anything.

She is transported and moved and transferred all over the place and sees many horrors that many could not even imagine. And as if surviving was not hard enough, she decides to attempt to help the Jews and other prisoners any way she can. It begins with simply placing food under a Ghetto fence and escalates to smuggling escaped Jews to somewhat of a safe town where they can be more like "free men."

Irene uses great detail and great insight to really make it easy to imagine the scenes in your head. Although some parts can drag on and be somewhat boring, overall it is definitely an interest catcher. Although there is something about her style of writing that makes it seem almost like she is sometimes trying to hard to write a great line or be clever and brilliant. But once you start reading a chapter like "Stealing From Rokita" you have to finish it to see what happens. It has that element of suspense and action that just holds your attention very well.