Not all heroes wear uniforms or capes. Not all resistance fighters use guns. In fact, the bravest ones don’t. Betsie ten Boom was a Hero and resistance fighter. She and her family saw what was happening with their Jewish neighbours and acted. I wish politicians nowadays would follow Betsie’s example and not do the easy thing—but the right thing.
Many people will know the name of Corrie ten Boom from the book and movie The Hiding Place, which tells the story of Corrie and her family who hid Jews in their home during the war.
Betsie was Corrie’s older sister, and her story is less known. Betsie was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church and strongly believed all men were equal in the eyes of God. She remained steadfast in that belief until the day she died.
She was born on 19th August 1885 in Amsterdam, with Congenital pernicious anemia, which is believed to be caused by a malfunction of the gastric juices of intrinsic factor during the nine weeks before birth. Her illness prevented her from bearing children, so she chose, at a young age, not to marry. Whilst she wasn’t active outside of the home during the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, she did keep everyone who passed through the home fed and watered and was a welcoming host.
In May 1942, a Jewish woman came to the Ten Boom home begging for help, knowing that if caught, she would be vulnerable to being deported by the Nazis or worse. The Ten Boom family, without hesitation, did what they saw as their duty as Christians and helped the woman They not only took this woman in but also opened their home to many others who were also in need.
In February 1944, the Nazis started suspecting that the Ten Booms were hiding Jews in their home and raided their home on the 28th of February. The ten Boom family and other people at the house, about 30 in all, were arrested for their resistance activities and taken to Scheveningen prison. The six Jews they were hiding had not been discovered, and all survived with the help of other Resistance workers. Casper ten Boom became ill and died ten days later at the prison.
Afterwards, Betsie and Corrie were moved to Vught near ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a concentration camp for political prisoners. Writing in The Hiding Place, Corrie recalls: “Together we climbed onto the train, together found seats in a crowded compartment, together wept tears of gratitude. The four months in Scheveningen had been our first separation in 53 years; it seemed to me that I could bear whatever happened with Betsie beside me.”
What is remarkable about Betsie is her positivity and determination that even in such a horrible, hate-filled place, she could see potential, she accepted the ordeal. She was the encourager for Corrie, who didn’t always see things the way her sister did. This is reflected in her statement to Corrie after they were given the rules by the guards in the camp: “Corrie, if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love! We must find the way, you and I, no matter how long it takes. I saw a grey uniform and a visored hat; Betsie saw a wounded human being. And I wondered, not for the first time, what sort of a person she was, this sister of mine, what kind of road she followed while I trudged beside her.”
In June 1944, Betsie ten Boom and her sister Corrie were transferred to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Her strong faith in God kept her from depression throughout her life, especially within the camps. Corrie told of how Betsie reached out to help others and helped Corrie see the best in everything, no matter what the circumstances.
One day, Betsie and Corrie were out levelling rough ground inside the camp wall. As Betsie wasn’t strong—she couldn’t put as much on her shovel, and when the guards saw her efforts, they made fun of her and beat her with a whip. This enraged Corrie, who rushed at the guard before Betsie stopped her, pleading for her to keep calm and keep working. When looking at the mark the whip left, Betsie said, “Don’t look at it, Corrie. Look at Jesus only.”
The harsh treatment, working long days outdoors, 4 am starts and lack of nutritious food led to Betsie becoming weaker as winter began. No longer able to do any duties, Betsie was brought to the camp hospital. One morning, Corrie had sneaked around to the hospital window after roll call to see her, only to find she had passed away. Betsie died on December 16, 1944.
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While the world is remembering the 60th Anniversary of the Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I want to focus on a different aspect of JFK, his time during World War II. Specifically, his time on PT 109.
“The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the NAVY and MARINE CORPS MEDAL to/ LIEUTENANT JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY UNITED STATES NAVAL RESERVE/ for service as set forth in the following/ CITATION:/ ‘For extremely heroic conduct as Commanding Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 following the collision and sinking of that vessel in the Pacific War Area of August 1-2, 1943. Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore. His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.’/ For the President,/ James Forrestal/ Secretary of the Navy.”
The text above is the citation for the Navy and Marine Corps Medal awarded to John F. Kennedy.
On 29 May 1917, JFK was born of Irish descent in Brookline, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy. Despite having a bad back, JFK used his father’s (Joseph P. Kennedy) influence to get into the war. He started out in October 1941 as an ensign with a desk job for the Office of Naval Intelligence. Kennedy was reassigned to South Carolina in January 1942. On 27 July 1942, Kennedy entered the Naval Reserve Officers Training School in Chicago.
In 1943, when his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite grave injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety.
PT-109 was a PT boat (Patrol Torpedo boat) last commanded by Lieutenant, junior grade (LTJG) John F. Kennedy in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Kennedy’s actions to save his surviving crew after the sinking of PT-109 made him a war hero, which proved helpful in his political career.
PT-109 stood at her station, one of fifteen PT boats that had set out to engage, damage, and maybe even turn back the well-known “Tokyo Express.” US forces gave that name to the Japanese navy’s more or less regular supply convoy to soldiers fighting the advance of US forces in the islands farther south.
When the patrol actually came into contact with the Tokyo Express—three Japanese destroyers acting as transports with a fourth serving as escort—the encounter did not go well. Thirty torpedoes were fired without damaging the Japanese ships. No US vessels suffered hits or casualties. Boats that had used up their complement of torpedoes were ordered home. The few that still had torpedoes remained in the strait for another try.
Lieutenant John F. Kennedy’s encounter with a Japanese destroyer on the night of 1 August 1943 may be the most famous small-craft engagement in naval history, and it was an unmitigated disaster.
At a later date, when asked to explain how he had come to be a hero, Kennedy replied laconically, “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.”
To understand the events of August 1–2, 1943, which culminated in the sinking of PT-109, it is important to remember that it was dark—deeply, unrelievedly dark. The disorienting effect, even for experienced sailors, of a moonless, starless night on the ocean should not be underestimated. In this profound darkness, PT-109 stood at her station in Blackett Strait, south of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands, one of the remnants of an operation born into futility, the heir to bad planning and worse communication.
The destroyer, later identified as the Amagiri, struck PT 109 just forward of the forward starboard torpedo tube, ripping away the starboard aft side of the boat.
The impact tossed Kennedy around the cockpit. Most of the crew were knocked into the water. The one man below decks, engineer Patrick McMahon, miraculously escaped, although he was badly burned by exploding fuel.
When PT-109 was cut in two around 2:27 a.m., a fireball of exploding aviation fuel 100-foot-high (30 m) caused the sea surrounding the ship to flame. Seamen Andrew Jackson Kirksey and Harold William Marney were killed instantly, and two other members of the crew were badly injured and burned when they were thrown into the flaming sea surrounding the boat. For such a catastrophic collision, explosion, and fire, there were few men lost compared to the losses on other PT boats hit by shell fire. PT-109 was gravely damaged, with watertight compartments keeping only the forward hull afloat in a sea of flames.
PT-169, closest to Kennedy’s craft, launched two torpedoes that missed the destroyer, and PT-162’s torpedoes failed to fire at all. Both boats turned away from the scene of action and returned to base without checking for survivors of PT-109. There had been no procedure outlined by Commander Warfield on searching for survivors or what the PT flotilla should do in case a ship was lost. In the words of Captain Robert Bulkley, a naval historian, “This was perhaps the most confused and least effectively executed action the PTs had been in. Eight PTs fired 30 torpedoes. The only confirmed results were the loss of PT-109 and damage to the Japanese destroyer Amagiri.”
Fear that PT 109 would go up in flames drove Kennedy to order the men who still remained on the wreck to abandon the ship. But the destroyer’s wake dispersed the burning fuel, and when the fire began to subside, Kennedy sent his men back to what was left of the boat. From the wreckage, Kennedy ordered the men with him, Edgar Mauer and John E. Maguire, to identify the locations of their crew mates still in the water. Leonard Thom, Gerard Zinser, George Ross, and Raymond Albert were able to swim back on their own.
Kennedy swam out to McMahon and Charles Harris. Kennedy towed the injured McMahon by a life-vest strap and alternately cajoled and berated the exhausted Harris to get him through the challenging swim. Meanwhile, Thom pulled in William Johnston, who was debilitated by the gasoline he had accidentally swallowed and the heavy fumes that lay atop the water. Finally, Raymond Starkey swam in from where he had been flung by the shock. Floating on and around the hulk, the crew took stock.
Kennedy had been on the swim team at Harvard; even towing McMahon by a belt clamped in his teeth, he was undaunted by the distance. Some were good swimmers, but several men were not. And two, Johnston and Mauer, could not swim at all. These last two were lashed to a plank, and the other seven men pulled and pushed as they could.
Kennedy arrived first at the island. It was named Plum Pudding, but the men called it “Bird” Island because of the guano that coated the bushes. Exhausted, Kennedy had to be helped up the beach by the man he had towed. He collapsed and waited for the rest of the crew. But Kennedy’s swimming was not over.
Plum Pudding Island was only 100 yards (91 m) in diameter, with no food or water. The exhausted crew dragged themselves behind the tree line to hide from passing Japanese barges. The night of 2 August, Kennedy swam 2 miles (3.2 km) to Ferguson Passage to attempt to hail a passing American PT boat. On 4 August, he and Lenny Thom assisted his injured and hungry crew on a demanding swim 3.75 miles (6.04 km) south to Olasana Island which was visible to all from Plum Pudding Island. They swam against a strong current, and once again, Kennedy towed McMahon by his life vest. They were pleased to discover Olasana had ripe coconuts, though there was still no fresh water.[46] On the following day, 5 August, Kennedy and George Ross swam for one hour to Naru Island, visible at an additional distance of about .5 miles (0.80 km) southeast, in search of help and food and because it was closer to Ferguson Passage where Kennedy might see or swim to a passing PT boat on patrol. Kennedy and Ross found a small canoe, packages of crackers and candy, and a fifty-gallon drum of drinkable water left by the Japanese, which Kennedy paddled back to Olasana in the acquired canoe to provide his crew. It was then that Kennedy first spoke to native Melanesian coast watchers Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana on Olasana Island. Months earlier, Kennedy had learned a smattering of the pidgin English used by the coast watchers by speaking with a native boy. The two coast watchers had finally been convinced by Ensign Thom that the crew were from the lost PT-109, when Thom asked Gasa if he knew John Kari, and Gasa replied that he worked with him. Realizing they were with Americans, the coast watchers brought a few yams, vegetables, and cigarettes from their dugout canoe and vowed to help the starving crew. But it would take two more days for a full rescue.
The next morning was 6 August. Kennedy returned with Gasa and Kumana to Naru. As he was swimming back, he intercepted Ross along the way. The islanders showed the two Americans where a boat had been hidden on Naru. Kennedy was at a loss for a way to send a message, but Gasa demonstrated how to scratch a few words into the husk of a green coconut.
Gasa and Kumana left with the message—
NAURO ISL COMMANDER . . . NATIVE KNOWS POS’IT . . . HE CAN PILOT . . . 11 ALIVE NEED SMALL BOAT . . . KENNEDY
As they waited for a rescue, Kennedy insisted on taking the 2-man canoe with Ross into Ferguson Passage. Heavy seas swamped the canoe and battered the men. They barely made it back to Naru. Eight islanders appeared the next morning, 7 August, shortly after Kennedy and Ross awoke. They brought food and instructions from the local Allied coastwatcher, Lt. A. Reginald Evans, who instructed Kennedy to come to Evans’s post.
Stopping long enough at Olasana to feed the crew, the islanders hid Kennedy under a pile of palm fronds, paddling him to Gomu Island in Blackett Strait. Early in the evening of 7 August, a little more than six days after the sinking of PT-109, Kennedy stepped onto Gomu. There was still a rescue to be planned with Evans, no small thing in enemy-held waters, but the worst of the ordeal of PT 109 was over.
Evans already notified his commander of the discovery of survivors from PT-109, and the base commander proposed sending a rescue mission directly to Olasana. Kennedy insisted on being picked up first so he could guide the rescue boats, PT 157 and PT 171, among the reefs and shallows of the island chain.
Late on the night of August 7, the boats met Kennedy at the rendezvous point, exchanging a prearranged signal of four shots. Kennedy’s revolver was down to only three rounds, so he borrowed a rifle from Evans for the fourth. Standing up in the canoe to give the signal, Kennedy did not anticipate the rifle’s recoil, which threw him off balance and dumped him in the water. A soaking wet and thoroughly exasperated Navy lieutenant climbed aboard PT 157.
The PT boats crossed Blackett Strait under Kennedy’s direction. They eased up to Olasana Island early in the morning of August 8. The exhausted men of PT 109 were all asleep. Kennedy began yelling for them, much to the chagrin of his rescuers, who were nervous about the proximity of the Japanese. But the rescue went forward without incident, and the men of PT 109 reached the US base at Rendova at 5:30 a.m. on August 8.
For his courage and leadership, Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and injuries suffered during the incident also qualified him for a Purple Heart. Ensign Leonard Thom also received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. But for John F. Kennedy, the event’s consequences were more far-reaching than simple decorations.
The story was picked up by the writer John Hersey, who told it to the readers of The New Yorker and Reader’s Digest. It followed Kennedy into politics and provided a strong foundation for his appeal as a leader.
The coconut shell came into the possession of Ernest W. Gibson, Jr., serving in the South Pacific with the 43rd Infantry Division. Gibson later returned it to Kennedy. Kennedy preserved it in a glass paperweight on his Oval Office desk during his presidency. Presently, it is on display at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts.
Nowadays, Amsterdam is known across the globe for several things, primarily for the red-light district. The area is known for its legal prostitution, sex shops, sex theatres, peep shows, a sex museum, a cannabis museum, and many coffee shops selling cannabis.
The city has more to offer than that though, museums, art and football to name but a few things.
The history of Amsterdam is mixed, especially its history during World War II. The majority of the Jewish population of Amsterdam was murdered during the Holocaust, often either by the Dutch Nazis or the German Nazis, who were assisted by Dutch collaborators.
However, some people who risked their lives to help their fellow neighbours, the often-forgotten Dutch heroes. One of these heroes had a military rank—she was a captain in an army—The Salvation Army.
Alida Margaretha Bosshardt was born into a Protestant middle-class family in Utrecht. Already at a young age, she showed independence and a strong will. During her teenage years, Alida came into contact with the Salvation Army and decided to enter the service. In 1932, at barely the age of 19 years, she took the oath, “…with God’s help, I will be a true and faithful soldier of the Salvation Army.”
She then studied at its Salvation Army Welfare and Health Academy to become an officer, a rank she attained in 1934. As a beginning recruit in the Army, Alida started work at the Zonnehoek, a home for children (from broken homes) in the Jewish area of eastern Amsterdam. Among her wards were the Jewish Terhorst sisters, Hendrina, b.1927, Helena, b.1934, and Dimphina, b.1938. In 1941, a newborn baby sister Roosje was accepted into the home. That same year, on the orders of the German occupying authorities, the Salvation Army was outlawed, and its buildings and money were confiscated. The Zonnehoek continued to function for some time as a private home. In the summer of 1942, with the onset of the deportations of the Jews to work in the East, many desperate Jewish parents brought their infants to Alida, begging her to find safe havens for them. In a large number of cases, she was able to do so, sometimes bringing them herself to the eastern parts of the country by bicycle. Some of the Jewish children she kept in the home, among whom were Klaartje Lindeman, Floortje and Doortje de Slechter and two Samson children. When the Germans billeted the home, Alida took as many children as she could to a newly rented apartment in the northern part of Amsterdam. She insisted that the four Terhorst sisters as well several other Jewish children stay under her care. During the move, she removed the yellow stars from the clothes of the older children, saying, “We don’t do this sort of thing.” After a bomb fell next to their new home, Alida again needed to move, making sure the Jewish children were included in the group. This scenario repeated itself several times until Alida had to split up the children and was able to find homes for some of the Gentile children and hide addresses for her various Jewish wards. In order to be able to buy food and other necessities, Alida went out to collect money. She was betrayed and arrested by the German regular police for collecting for the banned Salvation Army. Even though she was held at police headquarters, she managed to escape. She then hid at the orders of her Army superiors. When it was considered that the immediate danger had passed, Alida resumed her resistance and rescue activities. In the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, she regularly went on food treks to the eastern rural parts of the country—to find food needed in the various children’s homes in the West.
After the war, the Jewish children all went back to their families. She worked at the Army National Headquarters in Amsterdam. She noticed that the Army had no activities in Amsterdam’s red-light district. Through De Wallen, she obtained permission to start working there. Her work for the prostitutes gained her national fame. In 1965, she accompanied Crown Princess Beatrix (later Queen Beatrix) on a secret visit to the red-light district.
Alida Bosshardt (in her nineties) stayed active with the Salvation Army as Majoor Bosshardt and kept in touch with her earlier wartime wards. On 25 January 2004, Yad Vashem recognized and honoured Alida Margaretha Bosshardt as Righteous Among the Nations.
After Alida’s death on 25 June 2007, her friend and colleague Colonel Margaret White wrote a fitting tribute to her in the UK Salvationist magazine. She said of Alida’s later life:
‘”With indefatigable energy and great love, she was the chaplain and social worker to the diverse population of the red-light district. For many years she lived, slept and had her office in one room in the building that housed the Goodwill Headquarters. Through a network of centres, she served the homeless and those with alcohol problems. She was instrumental in helping to formulate laws to safeguard the health of those in the trade of prostitution.
It is not hard to imagine the young Alida in occupied Holland, working to keep safe the 80 children in her charge. At risk to her own life, she would cycle past the Nazi soldiers with Jewish babies hidden in the wicker baskets on her bicycle, taking them to safe houses. For saving the lives of many Jewish children she was honoured with the Yad Vashem Award.
It is hard to imagine what Alida Bosshardt would have been had she not joined The Salvation Army. The Army was the rich soil which nurtured and gave opportunities and fulfilment to her remarkable and gifted life. It matched her and she matched it. To God be all the glory.”
Major Bosshardt was immortalised in a bronze statue on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal in the Red Light District – in front of the Salvation Army, where most of her life took place. It presents this wonderful woman sitting on a bench, in her simple Salvation Army uniform.
The inscription on the bench (full photo of the bench is the first photo on the page) reads, “Serving God is serving people, serving people is serving God.”
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Limburg is the southern province in the Netherlands (there is also a province with that name in Belgium). It was one of the first places to be liberated in the Netherlands. By the end of September 1944, the entire province was liberated.
Hanna Van de Voort was a woman who was born in Meerlo, the North of Limburg. During the second world war, Hanna Van de Voort was a maternity nurse in Tienray in Limburg. Encouraged by her mother Marie, Hanna, together with 22-year-old students Nico Dohmen and Kurt Loewenstein went into hiding and gave 123 Jewish children a place to hide between 1943 and 1944. It was mainly concerned children, who were smuggled out of the Hollandsche Schouwburg in Amsterdam, where Jews were gathered for deportation. Almost all of the children were smuggled away by Piet Meerburg’s student resistance group.
The children usually stayed at Van de Voort’s home for a few days, where they were taught Catholic doctrine and about the street plan of Rotterdam. It was made clear that these children had been orphaned by the bombing of Rotterdam in 1940. All children were given pseudonyms and identity cards from the Central Bureau for Children’s Evacuation that was in bombed Rotterdam.
After a few days, they were placed with farming families in the area. The children were regularly transferred to new locations if they were in danger of being discovered. Aunt Hanna and especially, Uncle Nico—as they were called—kept in touch with the hiders and supported them by encouraging them to persevere. The foster parents received monetary compensation, clothing and footwear. The necessary vouchers for clothing and food came from Amsterdam.
The van Geffen family was one of the foster families. Sometimes things were even difficult to explain to their own children, below is an account of one of the van Geffen’s children.
“Maria was the eldest of the family. Her father was a strict Catholic, with a strong sense of social justice, he owned a shoe store in Tienray. He was active in the resistance as a courier of a resistance paper. Maria initially did not like that a Jewish girl, named Floortje de Paauw, had been included in the family. So she told the story that the Jews nailed Jesus to the cross. Floortje took revenge by walking on the bleach with her shoes on the white laundry. Eventually, It all worked out between those two. There was also a Jewish boy in the family: Daniël Jozeph Cohen, pseudonym Wim Dorn. He survived the war. Floortje participated in everything and went to school and to church. Maria remembers exactly how the Nazis lifted Floortje from bed during the children’s raid in Tienray on the night of 31 July 31–1 August 1944. She had to dress Floortje. After a big hug, Floortje said to Maria, “I’m not coming back.” She was killed on 6 September 1944 in Auschwitz. After the war, it was hardly talked about at home.”
After a betrayal by Lucien Nahon, a Dutch Nazi, a raid was carried out. On the night of 31 July 31–1 August 1944, raids took place in several hiding places that Lucien has provided.
During these children’s raids, Jewish children in hiding were arrested. The employees of the Eindhoven State Police and their helpers in Tienray and surrounding villages carried out the action. At least five children were arrested and deported to Auschwitz, and four of them were murdered there.
Floortje de Paauw (15-12-1933), Wim de Paauw (17-12-1934), Louis van Wezel (16-5-1936) en Dick van Wezel (6-3-1934).
Hanna van der Voort was also arrested during this raid. She was tortured to give information about the resistance, but she gave them nothing. She was released after nine days. Van de Voort suffered permanent damage to her health. She died on July 26, 1956.
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Willem Jacob van Stockum was born on November 20,1910 in Hattem,the Netherlands.
Willem moved to Ireland in the late 1920s, Where he studied mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin, where he earned a gold medal. He went on to earn an M.A. from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh.
The outbreak of World War II happened while he was teaching at the University of Maryland. He was eto join the fight against Hitler and Fascism,.
He joined the Canadian Air Corps in June 1941 (according to his sister, he was asked to join the Manhattan project, but chose this instead). Taught mathematics to pilots. Then became a bomber pilot himself. Moved to Britain in the spring of 1943 and joined no. 10 squadron at RAF Melbourne in Yorkshire, he was the only Dutch officer to do so.
He flew a Halifax Mk-III, MZ684, ZA-‘B’ bomber. Completed 6 missions before being shot down by German A.A. fire near Entrammes in France on the night of 9/10 June 1944. All seven crew were killed and are buried at the Cimetière Vaufleury at Laval, Dept. Mayenne, France.
He wrote this article on his reasons for becoming a bomber pilot
“I didn’t join the war to improve the Universe; in fact, I am sick and tired of the eternal sermons on the better world we are going to build when this war is over. I hate the disloyalty to the past twenty years. Apparently people think that life in those twenty years, which cover most of my conscious existence, was so terrible that no-one can be expected to fight for it. We must attempt to dazzle people with some brilliant schemes leading, probably, to some horrible Utopia, before we can ask them to fight.
I detest that point of view. I hate the idea of people throwing their lives away for slum-clearance projects or forty-hour weeks or security and exchange commissions. It is a grotesque and horrible thought. There are so many better ways of achieving this than diving into enemy guns. Lives are precious things and are of a different order and entail a different scale of values than social systems, political theories, or art.
“Why are we not given a cause?” some people ask. I do not understand this question. It seems so plain to me. There are millions and millions of people who are shot, persecuted and tortured daily in Europe. The assault on so many of our fellow human beings makes some of us tingle with anger and gives us an urge to do something about it. That, and that alone, makes some of us feel strongly about the war. All the rest is vapid rationalization. All this talk about philosophy, the degeneration of art and literature, the poisoning of Nazi youth, which the Nazi system entails, and which we all rightly condemn, is still not the reason why we fight and why we are willing to risk our lives.
Here, let us say, is a soldier. He asks himself, “Why should I die?” You would tell him: “To preserve our civilization.” When the soldier replies: “To Hell with your civilization; I never thought it so hot,” you take him up wrongly when you sit down and say to yourself: “Well, after all, maybe it wasn’t so hot,” and then brightly tap him on the shoulder and say: “Well, I’ve thought of a better idea. I know this civilization wasn’t so hot, but you go and die anyway and we’ll fix up a really good one after the war.” I say you take him up wrong because his remark: “To Hell with your civilization” doesn’t really mean that he is not seriously concerned about our civilization. He is simply revolted by the idea of dying for ANY civilization. Civilization simply isn’t the kind of thing you ever want to die for. It is something to enjoy and something to help build up because it’s fun, and that is that, and that is all.
When a man jumps into the fire to save his wife he doesn’t justify himself by saying that his wife was so civilized that it was worth the risk! There is only one reason why a man will throw himself into mortal combat and that is because there is nothing else to do and doing nothing is more intolerable than the fear of death. I could stand idly by and see every painting by Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo thrown into a bonfire and feel no more than a deep regret, but throw one small, insignificant Polish urchin on the same bonfire and, by God, I’d pull him out or else. I fight quite simply for that and I cannot see what other reasons there are. At least, I can see there are reasons, but they are not the reasons that motivate me.
During the first two years of the war when I was an instructor at an American University in close contact with American youth and in close contact with the vital isolationist question in the States, I often felt that there was much insincerity, conscious or unconscious, on our, the Interventionist, side of the argument. We had strong views on the danger of isolationism for the United States. We thought, rightly, that for the sake of self-interest and self-preservation the United States should take every step to ensure the defeat of the Nazi criminals. But however sound our arguments, our own motives and intensity of feeling did not spring from those arguments but from an intense passion for common righteousness and decency.
Suppose it could have been proved to us at that time that the participation of the United States in the stamping out of organized murder, rape and torture in Europe could only take place at great cost to the United States, while not doing so would in no way impair her security. Would we not still have prayed that our country might do something? And would we not have been proud to see her do something?
There is an appalling timidity and false shame among intellectuals. The common man in the last war went to fight quite simply as a crusader. I am not talking about politics now, I am not either asserting or denying that England declared war from purely generous and noble considerations, but I am asserting that the common man went and fought with the rape of Belgium foremost in his mind and saw himself as an avenger of wrong.
After the war the common man went quietly back to his home. The intellectuals, however, upon coming back, ashamed of their one lapse of finding themselves in agreement with every Tom, Dick and Harry, must turn around and deride the things they were ready to give their lives for. As they were the only vocal group, the opinion became firmly established that the last war was a grave mistake and that anyone who got killed in it was a sucker.
And now, in this war, these intellectuals are hoist with their own petard. They lack the nerve and honesty to represent the American doughboy to himself for what he is. They do not give him the one picture in his mind which would stimulate his imagination and which would make him see beyond the fatigues, the mud, the boredom and the fear. The picture is there for anyone to paint who has a gift for words. It is a simple picture and a true picture and no one who has ever sat as a small child and listened with awe to a fairy story can fail to understand. The intellectuals, however, have made fun of the picture and so they won’t use It.
But some day an American doughboy in an American tank will come lurching into some small Polish, Czech or French village and it may fall to his lot to shoot the torturers and open the gates of the village jail. And then he will understand.
There is a lot of talk among our intellectuals about our youth. Our youth is supposed to want a change, a new order, a revolution or what not. But it is my conviction that that is emphatically NOT what our youth wants. Have you ever been in a picture house on a Saturday afternoon, when it is filled with children and some old Western movie is ending in a race of time between the hero and the villain? Have you seen the rapt attention, the glowing faces, the clenched fists? What our young men really want is to be able to give that same concentrated attention and emotional participation, this time to reality, and this time as heroes and not as spectators, that they were able to give to unsubstantial shadows, before long words and cliches had killed their imaginations. Killed them so dead that they can no longer see even reality itself imaginatively.
It is up to the intellectuals to rekindle the thing they have tried to destroy. It is as simple as St. George and the Dragon. Why not have the courage to point out that St. George fought the dragon because he wanted to liberate a captive and not because he wanted to lead a better life afterwards? Some day, sometime, my picture of an American doughboy in a Polish village will become true. Wouldn’t it be better for him then to have the cross of St. George on his banner than a long rigmarole about a better world?
As long as our intellectuals and leaders do not have the courage to risk being thought sentimental and out-of-date and are not willing to stress that nations as well as individuals are entitled to their acts of heroism and chivalry, they will never be able to give our youth what it needs.
It is true that every fairy story ends with the words: “and they lived happily ever after.” How irritating a child would be, though, if it interrupted its mother at every sentence to ask: “But, Mummy, will they live happily ever afterwards?” It simply isn’t the point of the fairy story and it isn’t the point of this war.
Presumably we won’t live happily ever after this war. But just as a fairy story helps to increase a child’s awareness and wonder at the world, so this war may make us more aware of one another. Perhaps we shall learn, and perhaps some things will be better organized. I hope so. I believe so. But only if we engage in this war with our hearts as well as our minds.
For goodness’ sake let us stop this empty political theorizing according to which a man would have to have a University degree in social science before he could see what he was fighting for. It is all so simple, really, that a child can understand it.”
Below is a translation of the last letter he wrote to his mother, and actually the last words he ever wrote.
Willem to Olga van Stockum, 7 June 1944 [Translated by Engelien de Booij; this was shortly before Willem took off on his last flight from his Yorkshire RAF station, bombing a bridge over the river next to Laval, France.]
“Dear Mother, I am curious to know whether you have noted the date of my last letter. I cannot tell you how great the satisfaction was to be one of those who dropped the first bombs during the invasion. Officially we did not know it would start on June 5th, but the instructions we got, the mysterious doings, our route and what we could expect while in flight, made us fairly sure that this was The Day. We did our job in difficult circumstances, although there was not a very big opposition. … I am free tonight and am glad of it, for the strain is great and we had not a moment’s rest in the past days. Our kind of job needs hours of preparation, the operation itself takes 6 hours and after that debriefings, etc. Then a meal, to bed, sleep, and again preparations. Of course, we did not know beforehand it would be rather easy, and the nervous strain makes your breathing faster. Soon it will be worse, when the Germans get more information. But I would not want to miss this time for anything, and I am very thankful that I resisted the temptation to go to the other station, where Bierens de Haanals10 is, for then I would be now between two squadrons and perhaps have missed all this. My crew is perfect, calm, matter of fact, and one cannot find any signs of being nervous. I sometimes have the feeling I am the only one who is…. but perhaps they think the same thing of me. I have the feeling there is an enormous energy in everybody and even the B.B. (body building programs) are better and more imaginative. The whole station comes out to see us off when we take off, with their thumbs up and this is a pleasant feeling. I know how you and Hilda enter into my feeling now, and this is an invigorating feeling. [Note from Engelien – I cannot find the rest of this letter, unless the following fragment is the continuation, but this seems not very probable.] My roommate [at the air station in the UK – Yorkshire?] is a Belgian pilot aged 40 who doesn’t speak English [or Dutch], and with whom I spend much of my time, which is very good for my French. If only you could hear all the fantastic stories people tell, more interesting than the most terrible spy thriller!! My friend came here a few months ago here after having been in the Belgian underground movement. Did I write you that I saw in London Aunt Mia [Tante Mies?] quite often? We sympathized with each other about our tastes in literature. We talked about Dostoyevsky and she told me that you had written such a wonderful article about him. How nice there are people who remember this. I would like to see it some time. I long to read it. Very, very much love from your son Willem”
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We live in an era where social media ‘influencers’ or celebrities, who make a token gesture for the latest political hype , are seen as heroes. I find it very hard to comprehend this misguided notion. None of these people have ever done a heroic deed.
I cam across the picture above on an article titled “62 Historic Photos Of Love During Wartime”
The picture is of Jean Moore kneeling and kissing her fiancé, wheelchair-bound World War II Veteran Ralph Neppel, the picture was from 1945.At first I hadn’t noticed that Ralph was missing both of his legs. I think the smile on his face made me miss it the first time I glanced at the picture.
I then decided to do a bit of research into Ralph Neppel and I came across an amazing story of an extraordinary heroic deed.
Ralpg was a leader of a machine-gun squad defending an approach to the village of Birgel, Germany, on 14 December 1944, when an enemy tank, supported by 20 infantrymen, counterattacked. He held his fire until the Germans were within 100 yards and then raked the foot soldiers beside the tank, killing several of them. The enemy armor continued to press forward, and, at the point-blank range of 30 yards, fired a high-velocity shell into the American emplacement, wounding the entire squad. Sgt. Neppel, blown 10 yards from his gun, had one leg severed below the knee and suffered other wounds. Despite his injuries and the danger from the onrushing tank and infantry, he dragged himself back to his position on his elbows, remounted his gun, and killed the remaining enemy riflemen. Stripped of its infantry protection, the tank was forced to withdraw. By his superb courage and indomitable fighting spirit, Sgt. Neppel inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and broke a determined counterattack.
His left leg was also severely injured and had to be amputated. He was sent to England for a long series of rehab programs.
During his recovery and rehabilitation at McCloskey General Hospital in Temple, Texas, Neppel was fitted with prostheses and was promoted from sergeant to technical sergeant. He married his fiancée Jean Moore, and was discharged from the Army in 1946
Within a year he was walking on a prosthesis, playing golf, driving a car and playing baseball. He and his wife had three children. He worked his way through college earning a B.A., attended graduate school and spent 22 years working for the VA. He was a finalist for the 1969 President’s Trophy for the disabled Person of the Year and served 8 years on the Iowa Governor’s Committee for the Employment of the disabled.
He was awarded the United States military’s highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.
Medal of Honor
AWARDED FOR ACTIONS DURING World War II Service: Army Division: 83d Infantry Division GENERAL ORDERS: War Department, General Orders No. 77, September 10, 1945
CITATION: “The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Ralph George Neppel, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty while serving with Company M, 329th Infantry Regiment, 83d Infantry Division. Sergeant Neppel was leader of a machinegun squad defending an approach to the village of Birgel, Germany, on 14 December 1944, when an enemy tank, supported by 20 infantrymen, counterattacked. He held his fire until the Germans were within 100 yards and then raked the foot soldiers beside the tank killing several of them. The enemy armor continued to press forward and, at the pointblank range of 30 yards, fired a high-velocity shell into the American emplacement, wounding the entire squad. Sergeant Neppel, blown ten yards from his gun, had one leg severed below the knee and suffered other wounds. Despite his injuries and the danger from the onrushing tank and infantry, he dragged himself back to his position on his elbows, remounted his gun and killed the remaining enemy riflemen. Stripped of its infantry protection, the tank was forced to withdraw. By his superb courage and indomitable fighting spirit, Sergeant Neppel inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and broke a determined counterattack.”
Hate is never good, it clouds judgement and mind. I am not only saying this to those who read this but more so to myself.
I have written so many pieces about World War II, and although for all the horrors, I have always been careful to place the blame on the Nazis and not on the Germans. The fact that my country was occupied by the Germans, and I learned early in life that my Grandfather was killed by them, I grew up hearing the evil Germans from my family, so it is no wonder I developed a distaste for the Germans.
However, writing about the war and the Holocaust and doing the research has given me a more balanced view. Over the years, I found that not all Germans were bad; and not all Dutch were good.
Karl-Heinz Rosch was a young German soldier during World War II who saved the lives of two Dutch children.
Three days after Rosch turned 18 on October 6 1944, the young German soldier, along with his platoon, was stationed on a farm in Goirle, near Tilburg in the Netherlands, when Allied forces fired on them. He was about to hide in the basement with his comrades when he noticed that the two children of the farmer who owned the land seemed oblivious to the danger that was on them and continued to play in the courtyard.
He ran to them, took each in his arms and brought them into the safety of the basement. He again ran outside to position himself on the other side of the courtyard when a grenade hit him right at the spot where the children were earlier. Rosch was killed instantly.
“His corpse was completely torn apart, there were body parts everywhere,” according to one who witnessed the appalling scene.
As so often before and after the war, hypocrisy ruled. There were no issues channelling Nazi war criminals to the United States, United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics under the guise of Operation Paperclip and other similar operations. Many of them received great jobs and even had awards named after them.
However, when it was time to honour this young man—who saved two children—he paid the ultimate price—and it became a problem.
Rosch was a German soldier and the enemy. Therefore, his story was kept private after the war. The Dutch did not show any sympathy towards the German soldiers who had occupied their country during the war.
According to Herman van Rouwendaal, a former city councillor of the area, Karl-Heinz Rosch’s story was kept under wraps for 60 years—due to the fact that he was an enemy. “Because he was just a damn Kraut,” were his exact words.
“Because he was just a damn Kraut,” were his exact words.
Even his parents and grandparents did not know how Rosch died. It was not until the rescued children gave their testimonies that the story of the young German soldier’s sacrifice was made known to the public.
But in 2008, change in how the Dutch treated the Germans became palpable that then 76-year-old Rouwendaal, along with his friends, decided to make a push that would make amends to the one-of-a-kind, historical image.
“Some Dutch are caught in a black-and-white way of thinking. The Germans were all Nazis, the Dutch were all good. That there were also unsavoury characters among us, who for example betrayed Jews and robbed them, one does not like to hear,” he commented.
However, the monument honouring young German soldier Karl-Heinz Rosch was not put up without a fight.
Those who supported a memorial for Karl-Heinz Rosch were met with opposition in every way.
They had to stand against the argument that it was not right to make a statue for the enemy when the five men who came from Goirle, tied in stakes and were killed by German troops as a warning to resistance fighters—did not have any memorial honouring their unreasonable deaths.
There was a suggestion for a monument of the five men next to the stakes. which were preserved by the history museum in the locality. Finally, Rosch’s statue was erected near the five men’s monument. Through this, the two sides of the German occupation would be aptly represented—the all-too-common brutality and the scarcely evident show of humanity by some of the enemy soldiers.
However, after much discussion, the city council still turned down the making of Rosch’s monument, citing that one in honour of a Wehrmacht soldier would still be “too socially sensitive.” Besides, they did not want to make Goirle a pilgrimage site for the German neo-Nazis. Not only was the state funding for the said statue refused—but the city council refused to display the monument in any public area—a resolution regarded wrong by many Dutch.
Being turned down by the government did not, however, dampen the desire of the monument’s supporters to see through to its success. They did a fundraising drive to have the needed funds for its erection.
Artist Riet van der Louw depicted Karl-Heinz Rosch as he was – a Wehrmacht soldier complete with the steel helmet many would instantly recognize and have come to hate. But it also showed the extent of compassion he extended to Jan and Toos Kilsdonk, the two children who were tucked in each of his arms as he carried them to safety.
“We will not be honouring the Wehrmacht, but rather the humanity of a young German soldier,” van Rouwendaal strongly pointed out during the drive for Karl-Heinz Rosch’s memorial.
On 4 November 2008, a bronze statue was erected on private property in Goirle in memory of Karl-Heinz Rosch. The statue is considered to be the only monument in the world to a German World War II soldier who was part of an occupying force.
Just consider this, less than a week before saved the two children and was killed, Karl Heinz had still been a child himself.
Many thanks to my friend Norman Stone for drawing my attention to the story.
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Gino Bartali won the Giro d’Italia 3 times, in 1936,1937 and 1946. He also won de Tour de France twice, the first time in 1938 and again in 1948. This alone would make him a sporting hero. Especially his 2nd Giro d’Italia win, when his younger brother, Giulio, died in a racing accident on 14 June.1936 Gino came close to giving up cycling.
I could fill the blog will all his efforts as a cyclist, but he also a Hero for a completely different reason. In facts, with these heroic acts he risked his life every time.
Gino Bartali was born on July 18, 1914, in Ponte a Ema, a small village south of Florence, Italy. His father, Torello, was a day laborer. His mother helped support the family by working in the fields and embroidering lace. Gino had two older sisters, Anita and Natalina, and a younger brother, Giulio, who shared his passion for cycling and racing. Gino began to work at a young age, laboring on a farm and helping his mother with embroidery work.
Bartali was a devout Catholic. The summer of 1943 was a turning point for Italy. Mussolini was overthrown in July. In September, the new government signed an armistice with the Allies. Germany invaded the northern regions of the country, including Tuscany. With the German occupation, conditions for the Jewish population grew much worse.
Also in September 1943, Italian Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa asked to meet Bartali. Dalla Costa had been secretly aiding thousands of Jews seeking refuge from other European countries. The fugitives needed falsified identity cards. Dalla Costa shared his plan with Bartali. Under the cover of his long training rides, Bartali could carry counterfeit documents and photos in the hollow frame of his bike. The plan was a nearly perfect one as Bartali knew those roads well and his need to train provided an ideal alibi.
Under the pretense of training, Bartali would set off from his hometown of Florence with life-saving, counterfeit documents hidden away in his handlebars.
These fake identity documents would be used to help Jews escape across the border, or at least help hide their Jewish ethnicity if they were ever stopped and questioned. He would often ride as far as Assisi (over 100 miles one way), where many Jews were being hidden in Franciscan convents.
By taking on this role, he put himself at huge risk. At one point he was arrested and questioned by the head of the Fascist secret police in Florence, where he lived.
The Goldenberg family had met Gino Bartali in 1941 in Fiesole. Shlomo Goldenberg-Paz, who was 9 years old at the time, told Yad Vashem that he remembered a meeting with Bartali and his relative Armando Sizzi, who was a close family friend. The two sat with Shlomo’s father and had “a discussion of adults”. He remembered the event well because the renowned cyclist had given him a bicycle and a photo with a dedication, which Goldbenberg-Paz has always kept. In 1941 the conversation with Bartali could not have dealt with illegal papers, but meeting his childhood hero became engraved in Goldenberg’s memory.
When later on, following the German occupation in 1943, the Goldenbergs went into hiding, Shlomo was first sent to a convent, but then joined his parents who were hiding in an apartment in Florence belonging to Bartali. Gino Bartali helped and supported them. Goldenberg’s cousin, Aurelio Klein also fled to Florence because he had heard that one could obtain forged papers. He stayed in the apartment with the Goldenberg family for a short while, and then fled to Switzerland with the help of forged documents. Klein told Yad Vashem that Shlomo Goldenberg’s mother had received forged papers from Bartali, and that she was the only one in the family who dared set foot outside the apartment and go shopping.
For many years after the war, Bartali did not speak about his role in saving hundreds of people, sharing just a few details with his son Andrea. It was only after his death in 2000, that Bartali’s rescue activities came to light. In 2013, Yad Vashem recognized Gino Bartali with the honor of Righteous Among the Nations.
On July 7, 2013 Yad Vashem recognized Gino Bartali as Righteous Among the Nations.
He had everything to lose. His story is one of the most dramatic examples during World War Two of an Italian willing to risk his own life to save the lives of strangers. We can do with a few heroes like Gino nowadays.
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Sometime you come across stories and you are amazed that they are not widely known. We all have heard about Oskar Schindler because of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” , but the story of Otto Weidt is probably just as amazing.
It is a story which is close to me due to the fact that I am half blind, and more then likely at some stage in the future I will become completely blind, I hope it will a long time into the future. At one stage I was actually blind for about 6 months, so I have an idea on how it is not being able to see.
Otto Weidt’s decreasing eyesight forced him to give up his job in wallpapering. He adapted and learned the business of brush making and broom binding.
Otto Weidt and Else Nast met in Berlin in 1931 and married five years later, on September 22, 1936. This was Otto Weidt’s third marriage; he had two sons from his first marriage.
In 1936 Otto Weidt opened a Workshop for the Blind in Kreuzberg in Berlin; Else Weidt worked there with him. Otto Weidt took great risks in trying to help his Jewish workers persecuted by the Nazis; his wife gave him constant support. After Otto Weidt died on December 22, 1947, Else Weidt took over the management of the Workshop for the Blind. She died aged 72 on June 8, 1974.
In 1936 he established a company with the name “Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind” in the basement of Großbeerenstraße 92 in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. From 1940 on the workshop was based at Rosenthaler Straße 39 in the Mitte district, occupying the entire first floor of the side wing of the building. As one of his customers was the Wehrmacht, Weidt managed to have his business classified as vital to the war effort.
Up to 30 blind and deaf Jews were employed at his shop between the years of 1941 and 1943.When the Gestapo began to arrest and deport his Jewish employees, he fought to secure their safety by falsifying documents, bribing officers and hiding them in the back of his shop. But in February and March 1943 many were arrested and deported to concentration camps during the police raids known as “Operation Factory”.
Aside from the blind, Weidt also employed healthy Jewish workers in his office. This was strictly forbidden, as all Jewish workers had to be mediated through the labor employment office, which would ordinarily post them to forced-labor assignments. However, Weidt, managed to hire them by bribery.
The Jewish Inge Deutschkron was among the eight healthy Jews employed at the workshop. Inge and her mother were living in hiding to live , Weidt arranged an Aryan work permit for Deutschkron which he had acquired from a prostitute, who had no use for it.
Unfortunately, the permit had to be discarded three months later when the police arrested the prostitute.
One of Weidt’s most spectacular exploits involved the rescue of a Jewish girl who had been deported to the camps in Poland. In February 1943 Otto Weidt hid the Licht family in a storage room in the workshop for the blind at Neanderstraße 12 in Berlin-Mitte. The Gestapo arrested the family in October 1943 and deported them to the Theresienstadt ghetto on November 15, 1943.
There Weidt could support them with food parcels. All of 150 parcels arrived. After 6 months Alice and her parents were deported to KZ Birkenau. Alice managed to send a postcard to Weidt who promptly traveled to Auschwitz in attempt to help her.
Weidt found out that as Auschwitz was emptied, Alice was moved to the labor camp/ammunition plant Christianstadt. He hid clothes and money for her, in a nearby pension to aid her return. Through one of the civilian workers he contacted Alice and made her runaway and return to Berlin possible.
Alice eventually managed to return to Berlin in January 1945, and lived in hiding with the Weidt’s until the end of the war.
Alice’s parents both were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau
In the period from March 1943 until the end of the war there were only a few employees left in Weidt’s workshop. Apart from three non-Jewish workers, there were Jews married to non-Jews or people who had one Jewish parent, as well as several people in hiding like Inge Deutschkron, Alice Licht, Erich Frey, and Chaim and Max Horn.
Of the 33 only 7 survived.
After the war Otto Weidt supported the establishment of the Jewish Home for Children and the Aged at Moltkestraße 8-11 in the Berlin district of Niederschönhausen. After Liberation it was the first secure place for children and elderly people who escaped Nazi persecution.
All of this make Otto Weidt a hero, in my opinion. Just think of it, not only did he help Jews, he helped blind and deaf Jews. They were seen as lesser human beings in 2 categories as per the Nuremberg Laws. Otto died of heart failure in 1947, at 64 years of age.
On September 7, 1971, Yad Vashem recognized Otto Weidt as Righteous Among the Nations.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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I did a blog on Marcel Marceau about two years ago. Today, he would have been 100 years old. Therefore, I thought it appropriate to do another tribute to this Silent Hero.
He survived the Nazi occupation and saved many children during World War II. He was regarded for his peerless style of pantomime, moving audiences without uttering a single word, and was known to the world as the “Master of Silence.”
Marcel Marceau was born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg, France, to a Jewish family. His father, Charles Mangel, was a kosher butcher originally from Będzin, Poland. His mother, Anne Werzberg, came from Yabluniv, present-day Ukraine.
At the beginning of the second world war, he had to hide his Jewish origin. He changed his name to Marceau when his Jewish family were forced to flee their home. His father was deported and murdered at Auschwitz in 1944. Marceau and his brother, Alain, were part of the French resistance, helping children escape to safety in neutral Switzerland. Marceau also served as an interpreter for the Free French Forces under General Charles de Gaulle, acting as liaison officer with the allied armies.
He gave his first major performance to 3,000 troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
In 1947, Marceau created the character Bip the Clown, whom he first played at the Théâtre de Poche (Pocket Theatre) in Paris. In his appearance, he wore a striped pullover and a battered, be-flowered silk opera hat. The outfit signified life’s fragility and Bip became his alter ego.
He died on 22, September 2007. The Silent Hero who should never be forgotten.
History of Sorts 
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