George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, my father, Chesty Puller, Irene Gut, Trammel Crow, all American POWs, especially John McCain, and all soldiers who died on the battlefield, of all armies.  They are all personal heroes of mine.  I’m not sure if I love them more or respect them more, but they are all personal heroes to me.

One name may seem out-of-place — Irene Gut.  In the Fall of 1939, she was a skinny 17-year-old Catholic girl from Poland, who was gang-raped and beaten by the Russians, captured by the Nazis and forced to work as a waitress in the officers’ mess (or dining room).  Twelve Jews worked for her in the officers’laundry, whom she courageously saved from extermination by becoming mistress to a Nazi major, finishing the war as a POW held by the Russians.  Eventually migrating to the U.S., she became old and destitute, burdened with a husband suffering from Alzheimer’s.  To brighten her last years, the Jewish community in America came together to care for her husband and support Irene until her death.  Jews refer to such courageous people as “Righteous Gentiles” and give them great respect.  Irene Gut also deserves that respect!  Yours too!

You can learn about this remarkable woman from her highly readable biography, called In My Hands:  Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer.  I went to a remembrance ceremony for Irene last week and wondered how anybody could ever forget her . . . ?