From The Pastor’s Pen – By Brian Horrobin
A few years back I read an incredible book about one woman’s courage during the Second World War.
“What We Couldn’t Say” is the story of Diet Eman, a young Dutch woman living in occupied Netherlands during Hitler’s rampage through Europe during WWII, whose devotion to Jesus Christ and refusal to turn a deaf ear to the suffering of the Jews is an inspiration to all.
Honestly, I just could not put this book down, staying up late and opting out of television and other leisure activities in order to soak up Diet’s account.
After the Netherlands surrendered to Hitler in early May of 1940, it became very apparent that anyone who was Jewish was in grave danger.
Diet, along with her fiancé, Hein Sietsma, formed an underground resistance movement to assist Jews going into hiding.
Involvement in the movement included getting places for Jews in farmhouses in rural Holland, as well as securing false I.D. cards and stealing food ration cards for them.
The hope was to get as many to England as possible.
However, it was soon learned that this would not happen for the vast majority of them.
Instead, Diet and her friends were forced to take tremendous risks by staying in Holland to help the Jews.
They also had to take on false names (Diet changed hers four different times).
She and most of this team were captured and imprisoned.
Diet went two to three years without any contact with her parents, who were constantly lying to the Gestapo themselves to cover Diet in her work.
During her imprisonment, Diet learned to continue to trust in the Lord for His watchful care of her, as she had done before her incarceration.
She suffered many things, including malnutrition, exhaustion, ridicule, and mental torment, but the Lord brought her through it all.
Even her beloved Hein suffered and eventually died in March of 1945 in Dachau (a concentration camp that I visited in 1985).
Her main premise for engaging in the work of hiding Jews was the mandate from God’s Word, commonly known as the Golden Rule: “Therefore, however you want people to treat you, so treat them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12). Clearly, from reading the account of Diet’s life, it was apparent that she took the Golden Rule to the max!
The Holocaust was a terrible thing, and we should never forget it.
However, we must also learn from it.
Every single day we have opportunities to help people, to reach out to them, to treat them as we would want to be treated.
We don’t need to wait for a tragedy to happen for an excuse to do what needs to be done anyway, and that is to help people.
As you read this perhaps you are thinking of someone right now who could use your help, your touch of compassion.
Why not do it this week, today even.
Take the Golden Rule to your world!
