The film, directed by Louise Archambault, with a script by Dan Gordon, is based on the story of Irena Gut Opdyke, a Polish Catholic woman who during World War II was forced to work for Nazi leaders.
First, she was the supervisor of a group of tailors working in a laundry, all of whom were Jewish.
After she was promoted to become the housekeeper for Nazi officer Eduard Rugemer, she smuggled all 12 people out to hide them in the cellar of his house. Once the secret was found out, Rugemer agreed to remain silent if Irena became his mistress.
Archambault told the media that her film is about the extraordinary courage of a young woman who said no to the killing of the innocent.
“It is a story of the adversities in life, of love, hope and dignity,” Archambault said.
Roman Haller, who describes Irena Gut as “someone who gave birth to me,” told the Polish media that Irena's Vow “should show us the road to peace, what with the ongoing fighting in Ukraine and Israel.”
He added: “It’s of the utmost importance for the people to understand at long last that the blood that is spilled in wars is not Jewish, Christian or Moslem. It is human blood.”
Haller, who came to Poland for the film’s premiere, survived the Holocaust thanks to Irena Gut. When his mother became pregnant, Irena Gut talked her and her husband out of the idea of an abortion, saying that Hitler cannot have another baby.
Haller was born in May 1944, in the woods near Tarnopol, in what is Ukraine today and was Poland at the time.
The cast of Irena’s Vow includes many Polish actors. According to Andrzej Seweryn, who plays Nazi officer Schultz, the film is about the victory of the good over evil and should be shown to audiences around the world.
In 1982, Irena Gut she received the Righteous Among the Nations medal from the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem for aiding Jews during WWII.
She died in 2003 in California. In 2008, she was posthumously awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Reborn Poland, one of the highest Polish state distinctions.
(mk/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, onet.pl