Yesterday, I wrote a post about the relevance of books. It reminded me of a book I read last year called Things We Couldn’t Say written by Diet Eman with James Schaap that greatly challenged my faith. It’s a true story about how Diet, who was a young Dutch woman during WWII, and her fiancé, Hein Sietsma, got involved in the Resistance–hiding Jews and other people that Hitler wanted to exterminate after he overran Holland.Early in the book, when Diet was 20, she tells the story about when the Gestapo first discovered that Hein was working with the Resistance and how she went looking for places for Hein to hide. See if this excerpt from pages 58 and 59 (of the trade paperback version) moves and challenges you as much as it did me:
"That night I went to many Christian friends and family, and no one would take Hein in. I remember that I was riding (my bike) on main avenue in The Hague, Laan van Meerdervoort, which goes from one end of the city to the other, tears streaming down my cheeks. Nobody wanted to take in my beloved Hein. People would remind me of their little children at home, and they would say, 'We don’t know what the Gestapo might do if they find him here.' And they were all so busy, and they had to have other guests. They were all fake excuses, lame excuses!
"That night, right there on the street in The Hague, I made a vow that if ever people were being persecuted and needed a place to hide or something to eat, I vowed I would help them. What had happened that night to me was horrible. I was so upset with all those so-called Christians."
Do you ever think about how you would respond if God had placed you in another time period? I do. I wasn't even a Christian at the age of 20, but even if I had been, I wouldn't have had the spiritual maturity or the courage to be part of the Resistance like Diet and Hein were. And I wonder if I would have been one of those "so-called Christians" who turned Diet and Hein away that day. It pains me to think about it.
How about you? Would you have joined the Resistance when you were 20? Or if you had been one of those Christians that Diet and Hein approached to hide Hein, would you have turned them away? Diet eventually lost her freedom for her part in the Resistance and Hein lost his life. They were willing pay that price because their cause was just.
I'm so thankful for books like this. They chronicle and preserve history. And they challenge future generations to think about the unthinkable.
