Jeannie Smith

On Monday, Dec. 2, Jeannie Smith of Woodland, Wash., the daughter of the late Polish Holocaust rescuer Irene Gut OpDyke, shared her mother’s heroic story of standing up to Nazi persecution and hatred with students at two Greenwich schools. Hosted by UJA Greenwich, Smith’s talks at Greenwich High School and Western Middle School built on recent workshops conducted by JCC Greenwich to give parents of local elementary school children the tools to recognize and help prevent bullying.

Smith also discussed her mother’s courageous story at a Dec. 2 dinner with participants in the Jewish Twenties and Thirties coordinated by Jewish Family Service of Greater Stamford; and she was featured guest speaker at an event of the Lion of Judah and Pomegranate divisions of UJA Women’s Philanthropy in Greenwich.

Irene Gut OpDyke, who died on May 18, 2003, garnered international recognition for her actions during the Holocaust while working for a high-ranking German official. Her remarkable story was recently told on Broadway in the nationally acclaimed play “Irena’s Vow,” starring Tovah Feldshuh, and is chronicled in her book In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer. Named one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by the Israeli Holocaust Commission, her story is part of a permanent exhibit in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.