Most of us are hopefully lucky enough to not deal with Holocaust denial in our everyday lives. But for Irene Gut Opdyke (born Irena Gut in 1922), Holocaust denial changed the trajectory of how her life would affect others.
Decades after the end of World War II, an encounter with a Holocaust denier prompted Irene to begin telling her story – the story of how, while she was just a teenager in Nazi-occupied Poland, she hid 12 Jewish people in the cellar of the Nazi official whose house she worked in.
Irene began sharing her story with the world, and it eventually became a play written by Dan Gordon called “Irena’s Vow.” The play premiered in 2008, and has now been adapted into a film starring Sophie Nélisse (“Yellowjackets”) and Dougray Scott (“Ever After”) that will screen at this year’s Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (AJFF).
War stories are a dime a dozen in Hollywood, but “Irena’s Vow” looks at World War II from a very different perspective. Irene was born into a Catholic family, and it was her faith that helped propel her to try and help as many Jewish people as she could. There are no giant battles in “Irena’s Vow,” no slick espionage – just a girl risking her life.
Rough Draft Atlanta recently spoke to Jeannie Smith, Irene’s daughter, about her mother’s story and the film. Smith is expected to join Nilésse and Scott at the AJFF film screening on Feb. 13 at the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
I read that your mother didn’t really open up about this part of her life until later. When did you first start to learn about the story, and when did she start to open up about what happened?
Jeannie Smith: They were at the same time, actually. When mom came across on the ship into Ellis Island, she said when she saw the Statue of Liberty, she put a “Do Not Disturb” sign over her memories. She was just going to literally start over in a new country, and that’s what she did. She ended up getting her citizenship, got married, moved to Southern California and became an interior decorator. She was one of Southern California’s top [interior decorators]. She was really successful, because of a combination of things about her.
One night, when I was 14 actually, we were, the three of us, sitting down having dinner. The phone rang, like it always does, and mom got up to answer it, because it was always for her. But this time, it was a college student on the other end of the phone. He was doing a survey for a report in school. His topic was that the Holocaust never happened – it was just propaganda drummed up by the Jews so that people would feel sorry for them. He was just calling random people to find out what they thought.
You know, as a 14 year old, you don’t pay any attention to your parents on the phone. But at some point, I realized that she was saying some pretty incredible things, and I looked at my dad to ask him what she was talking about … He just said, she’s talking about things that happened in her past. At some point, this young man hung up the phone on mom, and she just looked devastated, tears streaming down her face and she really couldn’t speak at all. When she finally did, she said: All these years – because it had been almost 30 years since she’d been in this country – all these years that I’ve been silent, I’ve allowed evil and allowed the enemy to win. She said, from now on, I’ll talk to anyone, so that these things don’t happen again. She was so shocked that this young man – a college student who wasn’t even alive during World War II – had somehow been convinced or brainwashed that it didn’t happen. The fear of that continuing was just unthinkable for her. So that’s when she started talking, and that’s the first time I heard the story.
So after that initial phone call, how did she begin to share her story? I know Dan Gordon, the playwright – the play came out in 2008, but I remember reading that he had been circling the story for a while. How did he come across it?
Smith: The first time my mom spoke – my dad was president of the Rotary Club in our area, and the speaker had canceled last minute, and he asked her to go and she did. It was very hard for her, but she did it and there was a rabbi that happened to be in the audience. He really got started with interviewing her … and getting her story out. She started speaking for different groups he put together, and eventually got her on a radio talk show, The Dennis Prager Show.
It was when she was on that show that Dan Gordon, who was driving his car in Los Angeles, heard the program and listened so intently that even once he got home, he just sat in the driveway in his car and listened to the program. Afterwards, he called the show and was able to get her contact information and called her. Actually, he used to drive her to various high schools that she was speaking at and initially wrote the story as if he were a high school student and she was a special guest speaker, from their point of view. So that’s how it got started.
Considering the fact that she kept it all inside for so long – I know you said that at this point, she said she would talk to anyone – but I wonder, did she have any reservations about their being a play, or the story being on such a public stage?
Smith: Well, she never knew about that. The play happened a long, long time ago. The initial phone call was in the 1970s.
Oh, wow. So it was circling around for a long time.
Smith: Yes, a long time. She knew about the play – she was actually in a care facility, the one that she passed away in. Dan and her shared the same birthday, May 5, and he had written a play and did a reading at some college, I don’t remember. He called her after the reading was over so she could hear the audience’s applause. And that’s all that she knew about it. She died like, two days after that.
As far as the play goes and then the subsequent movie, since she had passed away, how involved were you in that process?
Smith: I wasn’t involved at all at the beginning. At all. In fact, my mom every once in a while would say, maybe someday you’ll tell my story. And it was like – never gonna happen, mom. I work with kids and horses, and public speaking was so not my thing. But when she passed away in 2003, she had her little black appointment book with her in the care facility that she was at. She was literally making appointments while she was there to speak. I got her book and called places to let them know she had passed, and one was right in Los Angeles at the Simon Wiesenthal Center and it was only two weeks away. They said, we can’t cancel. Can you come?
It was like – no, absolutely no! I hung up the phone and then, guilt – you know how that is. So I called them back and I just said, what do I have to do? I don’t think I can do that. But they said they would make it a panel discussion, they would bring other people in. That’s what they did, and so I did that a few times a year until the Broadway play came. Then, the producers invited me to come and do what was called a talkback. I had no idea what a talkback was – I mean, super country girl here. A talkback is after every performance, you stand in front of 1,100 people and answer their questions. So that was kind of a hard way to break into public speaking.
Absolutely. I did theater growing up and went to a few talkbacks. I ask people questions for a living, and I don’t think I would enjoy answering them as much.
Smith: [Laughs] It’s pretty harsh.
You mentioned you work with kids and horses, and I read that you’ve fostered a lot of children.
Smith: I did have a horse stable for a long time, and the foster kids that we had – and they weren’t all foster kids, some were just kids that we brought in that truly weren’t traditional foster kids, but we still took care of them – it’s just a great combination to have kids that need so much emotionally, and horses that sometimes need so much. The connections are really healthy. So we did that for quite a while. Then when I started speaking, I sold my stable and now we just have kids. Or we did – our last one graduated three years ago, so we’re done with that. It’s a good thing, because I’m not home very much anymore.
You had already seen the play, but how was your experience watching the film? Was it different, experiencing the story through that lens?
Smith: Both were unique. I had never seen a play before, so a play about my mother on Broadway was my first experience. Tovah Feldshuh played my mom, who was much older, and did an amazing job playing a 17 and 18 year old. It was more personable, because I lived there, close to the actors and we did so much together. That was surreal.
The movie, I see Dan’s story in there, but credit given to the director Louise [Archambault] … She took it to a level that I didn’t see it being able to be in the play. The play was great as a play, but I couldn’t see it made as a movie. I didn’t see how it would translate. She just did such an amazing job. It’s a whole different experience. It’s just pretty surreal.
What did you think about Sophie Nélisse’s performance?
Smith: She’s perfect. I mean, I couldn’t have handpicked somebody better. Just absolutely perfect.
Earlier, we were talking about how this is a different kind of World War II story than you usually see. What do you hope people take away from your mother’s story?
Smith: I have big hope for this, actually – thank you for asking the question. Unlike a history program that so many of the Holocaust movies are, and need to be, my mom’s story is so current in so many ways – one what’s happening right now in Israel, but more so, her story is about literally a girl that doesn’t have access to her family or her home. She’s got no home of her own. She’s got really no friends to lean on. She just has herself, and she sees horrible things happen and she makes a decision to help. You know, to me, it’s such a call for all of us, because most of us are in a position that’s much better than where she was in what we have and the securities we have and our influence and stuff. The truth is, every single day, we have the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life – to make a choice that can help someone, that can cause good, that can stop something that’s wrong. We can make an action that will matter in someone else’s life. If that message could go out, that it’s just not another piece of entertainment or even a piece of history, but a reality that each morning, we can wake up and we can say – God give me eyes to see hurt and suffering, loneliness and pain, and then the wisdom to know what to do about it.
