She’s been on Broadway in a drama, a musical, a comedy, and a one-woman show — and got Tony nominations for all of them. How many other performers in Broadway history can say that? Probably only Tovah Feldshuh, who was heartbreaking in Yentl, sassy in Sarava, hilarious in Lend Me a Tenor — and simply astonishing in Golda’s Balcony. Now she’s got a new project, Irena’s Vow, that’s currently playing at the Baruch Performing Arts Center on East 25th Street (www.irenasvow.com). We had a chat about her and the show in her West Side apartment.

Peter Filichia: So who are you this time?

Tovah Feldshuh: Irena Gut Opdyke, a Polish Catholic blond-haired, blue-eye Christian.

PF: Typecasting, huh?

TF: Right on the money. In 1939, she rescued a number of Jews who were being hunted by the Germans. She claimed she was 17 at the time, but I recently went to Poland and found her birth certificate, which said she was really 21. Even if she was, I’m impressed: I have a daughter that age a junior at M.I.T. and the idea of her saving 12 people is far out.

PF: How did it happen?

TF: She was studying to be a nurse and was caught in the web of the war as the Nazis advanced from the west, and the Russians advanced from the east. While looking for her parents in western Poland, she was rounded up by the Nazis, and sent to a munitions factory there. The commandant, Major Eduard Rugemer, saw her and took a shine to her because her German was fluent and her looks were Aryan — so he made her the head of laundry in the barracks.

PF: And expected sexual favors?

TF: Not then he didn’t. He was a very strict schoolmaster type, a proper man in his ‘60s. But he did expect her to make sure the Jews toed the line. Then she saw a mass killing of Jews, people murdered in front of her — old people, young people, women and children — and at the time, she could do nothing. She felt that God put her at a crossroads and gave her a choice between a moral and an immoral life, between complicity and redemption, between death and life. She didn’t ask for it, but He put all those people’s lives it into her hands. So 11 Jews who worked in the laundry that they had to hide.

PF: Where could they possibly hide?

TF: That was the problem. The youngest one — someone around her own age — turned to her and said, “You hide us.” Irena said, “Where can I hide you? I live in a room that’s barely big enough for my cot. I can’t hide you in my pockets.” Another Jew said, “Then we’re dead.” But around the same time, Rugemer decided to move out of his barracks to a big villa once owned by a Jew on the outskirts of town, and he made her — this kid — his head executive housekeeper. There, Irena heard that the entire ghetto would be liquidated on July 22, and got a notion that she could hide the Jews in an air vent over the Major’s toilet.

PF: That sounds utterly impossible.

TF: This is a documented story; 11 people have corroborated this. So, on the 21st, she snuck the Jews into the air vent, which ran the length of the bathroom and, as luck would have it, connected to the other rooms on that floor. They stayed there for over 24 hours, and certainly couldn’t use that bathroom below them. When the soldiers arrived, Irena took them into the cellar; when they finished searching and they came and rested on the main floor, she managed to get the Jews into the cellar before they searched the attic.

PF: If it weren’t so serious, this would seem to be a French farce.

TF: It was crazy. But as the likelihood of their getting caught was increasing, one of the Jews said, “This was originally a Jewish house. There’s got to be a secret room in it somewhere.”

PF: And they went looking for one?

TF: And found one: A hollowed-out area of a coal chute in the cellar that went to a tunnel that led to a room with a wooden slat roof — because it was actually the floor of the gazebo out in the lawn. They stayed there when they couldn’t use the actual cellar.

PF: Could there possibly be other more complications?

TF: One couple even gave birth to a child there. And the major forgot his briefcase, and came back for it — and discovered what she was doing. And the story, as they say, goes on from there.

PF: I know plenty of Jews who can’t bear to hear a word about the Holocaust. You face it square in the eye, don’t you?

TF: It’s very important to. Interesting, though, when Goering came to see the killings in Auschwitz, he threw up. That was the end of any high-ranking German officer coming to see what was going on in the camps. Some of the Germans themselves couldn’t stand to witness what they were doing. That’s why they put the gas chambers underground, so no one would have to see them. When they turned the lights off, that was for the solders, not the Jews. They made one or two holes in the ground so that they could drop in the gas pellets, close off the hole, and walk away. They soundproofed the gas chambers so they couldn’t hear the screams, and, just in case, Germans ran their motorcycles loudly. Really, if you go to Auschwitz, I won’t say you’ll feel as if you’re at Brown University, but it looks — forgive me now, I’m sorry — cozy, with its terra cotta buildings and grass growing.

PF: Did you find this story yourself?

TF: Not at all. This is the third time in my life that something wonderful has come my way through other circumstances. I played the mother in Kissing Jessica Stein because the young woman who wrote it, Jennifer Westfeldt, was once my assistant, and she asked me to do it, and I was very glad she did. Then my working on Law & Order for a wonderful director named Matt Penn turned out to get me Golda’s Balcony — because Matt’s father is Arthur Penn, who directed Two for the Seesaw and The Miracle Worker by William Gibson. So when Bill wrote Golda’s Balcony, Arthur told him, “There’s this actress that my son loves,” and that happened. This happened because I was doing a play called Kilt at The Directors Company, and met an actor named John Stanisci, who co-founded a company, Invictus Theatre, with Thomas Ryan. They approached me two years ago to do a reading of Irena’s Vow by Dan Gordon — the response was overwhelming.

PF: Oh, this isn’t a one-person show?

TF: Hardly — there are 10 actors in it. Thomas Ryan is playing Rugemer, and John Stanisci the head Nazi stormtrooper Rokita. But when we were starting out with these readings, all we knew was that we simply loved the story. We had no idea thesupport to go forth wiith a production would be so enthusiastic. It flooded in. I was pleased to help Invictus launch the play because of my belief in Stanisci and Ryan, and because this is a true story that should be told.

PF: Very nice of you.

TF: Look, I’m not righteous heroine. I also love making a living. I’ve been a professional fund-raiser. I’ve raised millions and millions of dollars for very important causes — and I’ve been paid thousands of dollars to do it. So don’t pin a medal of honor on me. This is one of the ways I make my living, and I’m glad it does good in the world, but I’m well-paid. Actors have to be paid, too.

PF: You went to Poland and do research. What did you find there?

TF: Poland is beautiful, and so is Krakow. But I also have to say that I saw a wood carving of a Jew holding money. “What is this?” I asked a Pole, who told me matter-of-factly, “Oh, the Jews are good with money.” I said, “In my country, that’s called racial profiling.” The Pole said, “Why? We’d put an Arab next to an oil well.” So this is their “compliment” to the Jews.

PF: The country has had a controversial relationship with Jews over the years, hasn’t it?

TF: To say the least. Poland was the only country where helping a Jew was punishable by death. Remember Miep, who helped Anne Frank and her family? After the Franks were found in the attic, she wasn’t killed by the government. But the Polish people who helped any Jews were strung up in the town square, along with their spouse and children, along with the Jews that had been caught. Hundreds of Polish Jews who were able to survive the war and the camps came back home to reclaim their property which had been appropriated by the Poles— and were shot in the head.

PF: How awful.

TF: On the other hand, let’s not overlook the thousands of recorded acts of heroism in Poland to save victims of the Reich — Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and Communists. Irena was one of them. And now, when this play needed seed money, the Polish Cultural Institute provided it. That allowed us to proceed, and then an angel came along. Stan Raiff has provided a great deal of funds, and the Directors Company is a producer, too, with Michael Parva directing. I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty good.