Irena Gut was born into a Catholic family, in Kozienice, Poland, the same year as the formation of the Second Polish Republic; she was one of five daughters.

[4] It was during this period that Gut witnessed a German soldier, in the ghetto near the hotel, rip an infant from its mother's arms and throw the baby head-first onto the ground, presumably killing the child.

[5] Horrified, she initially wanted to leave her faith but she came to a realization that people have a choice between doing good or evil and determined that she would help the Jews when the opportunity arose.

She was put in a Displaced Persons camp, where she met William Opdyke, a United Nations worker from New York City.

The papal blessing and audience with the Pope had been obtained for her by congregant Alan Boinus with the help of Monsignor Joseph Karp of the John Paul II Polish Center Catholic church in Yorba Linda, California.

Boinus also arranged for other meetings in Israel for Opdyke with Mordecai Paldiel, Director of the Department of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem, and with Holocaust survivor Roman Haller: Roman was the baby Opdyke saved during the war by convincing his parents, Ida and Lazar Haller—two of the 12 Jews that Gut had hidden in Rügemer's cellar—that Ida should carry the child to term after she became pregnant while hiding in the cellar.

After the war, when a returning Rügemer was rejected by his wife and children in Nuremberg for being party to saving Jews, the Hallers took him into their own home in Munich.

Haller went on to serve as director of the German office of the Claims Conference, which represents world Jewry in negotiating restitution for the victims of Nazi persecution.

[17] Opdyke's memoir, In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer,[18] was arranged by her then-manager Alan Boinus and published in 1999 through Random House, with co-author Jennifer Armstrong.

[25] In 2012, Katy Carr, a British songwriter with Polish roots, released a song inspired by Opdyke titled "Mała Little Flower"[26] on her album Paszport.