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January 13, 2010Would I Have Hid Jews During the Holocaust?
The story of Miep Gies, the Christian Dutch woman who helped hide Anne Frank and preserve her diary, makes me wonder.
This Monday marked the passing of Miep Gies, the last surviving member of the group that hid Anne Frank and her family during the Holocaust. Gies, the Christian Dutch woman who died at age 100 after a fall, is credited with preserving Anne's diary and giving it to Anne's father, Otto (the only member of Anne's family to survive the death camps), after the Holocaust.
Reading about Gies's death reminded me of falling in love as a teenager with The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom's story of hiding Jews in Holland during World War II. Despite the horror within its pages, I read the book over and over, moved by ten Boom's incredible faith. "I would do that," I told myself as I read the book. "If I had lived then, I would have done exactly what her family did. I would not have stood silently by."
In college I cried my way through the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and attended a lecture by a woman who had been active in the movement to shelter Jews in Poland. I had impassioned conversations with friends about what we would have done, had we lived then. "We would have helped," we said. But what if such helping endangered our parents, our loved ones? Well, then we didn't know. We weren't quite sure. We hoped we would have found it within ourselves to do the right thing.
In graduate school I attended a screening of Into the Arms of Strangers and listened as one of the Kindertransport (refugees, mostly Jewish children, who were transported to the U.K. and taken in by families during the Holocaust) recounted her story. "I would have taken in those children," I said to my then-new husband. "But would you do that now?" he asked. "What if it meant the life of someone you loved? What if it meant me?"
Now, I read about Gies, quoted as saying about her involvement during the war, "I simply did what I could to help." And I wonder what I would have done, had I lived then. Endanger the lives of my three small children to rescue a stranger? I don't know.
I want to think that I would do as ten Boom and Miep Gies and countless other believers did, and refuse to do nothing. I want to think that I am brave enough, my faith strong enough, to be God's hands and feet on the earth, as Teresa of Avila said. Even in the most horrific of horrors.
What do you think? What would you do?
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Comments
I'd like to think that I would've helped. But maybe that is thinking too much of myself. Yet I ask myself, "Am I helping now? Am I standing around doing nothing or am I working against abortion and sex-trafficking and racism and other causes?" If I am not now, then I don't think that I would've then. I wonder if what we are doing now is a good indication of what we would've done then? May God help me, help us all, to do what we can in the name of Jesus.
Thank you for the post. It is a question that my husband asks students in his ethics classes. Believe it or not, some students say that they wouldn't hide the Jews because that means lying to the Nazis.
Posted By: Marlena | January 14, 2010 1:33 PM
look up Snapper, Righteous Among the Nations. My parents were honored in Oct 2007 for hiding Jews in holland. 76 survivors were in attendance, along with us 28 of us from America.
I ask that question- would I have done what my parents did.
Posted By: Hans Snapper | January 14, 2010 4:42 PM
Reading Hans Snapper's comments (Jan 14, 2010 4:42 pm) gave me a strong sense of pride in the people all over the world who stood up against evil during WWII. They all did it in various ways, but for the same overall purpose. And for that I am very proud. I hope to meet the Snapper family, Mrs. Geis, and many, many more in Heaven. What a song fest that will be!
Posted By: Ron Boto | January 15, 2010 10:29 AM
I wouldn't have because as a Jewish believer I would have been the one hiding. I am very appreciative of the ones who stood up and did the right thing. When I was a new christian learning about these righteous ones helped to grow and be rid of the prejudices I had against gentiles. Whether I would do the same in a similar situation can only be answered at the moment of truth. I pray and hope for the faith and strength to be able to recognize when such actions are needed and to act.
Posted By: Steve | January 15, 2010 10:40 AM
I have asked myself this exact question many, many times. I am not a courageous person. I do stand by my convictions, yet, quietly. The only hope I have is that when the time would come, God will prompt me with His courage to step in to do what He requires....as Corrie ten Boom has said in The Hiding Place, "when it is time to get on the train" God will give me my ticket, and not until then.
Posted By: Vicki | January 15, 2010 1:17 PM
It is extremely easy for people out there to answer yes to this question. Most people would. However, what people say is often not consistent with what they do.
What are Americans are doing right now as the federal government is torturing people who may be innocent? What are Americans doing right now as their "leaders" urinate and defecate on the Constitution every chance they get? What are Americans doing right now as people in foreign countries are being slaughtered?
The majority of Americans are actually worse than doing nothing. They are cheering on and celebrating their "leaders." The majority of Americans would not hide the Franks. The majority of Americans would turn them in to the Gestapo.
Posted By: Chris Baker | January 15, 2010 7:05 PM
The author makes some good points, and the stories of Anne Frank, Corrie ten Boom, and Miep Gies, are inspirational, but the question of what we would do in the face of utter evil is NOT some hypothetical mental excercise. In the here and now atrocities are happening or are threatened. What are we doing NOW?
For example, the kill-the-gays bill in Uganda would require parents, teachers, pastors, doctors, and others to immediately report all the gay people they know to the authorities (to face the death penalty) or face lengthy prison terms themselves. People who stood up on CT's website against such a threatened atrocity were excoriated by many (although not all). Even the CT web community "moderator" let stand multiple postings by one poster who, in support of the kill-the-gays bill, referred to GLBT folks and oppnents of the bill as "virulent homosexual fleas and their rat carriers."
Another example, the evangelical community is split on the issue of torture. TORTURE! As if there could EVER be a Christian position favoring torture.
Read Samantha Powers' book, A Problem from Hell, about genocide. Read Kristoff & Dunn's book, Half the Sky. (And the CT guest blogger's grotesque review of an excerpt, in which she worried that giving a woman a microloan so that she could start a business to support her family somehow came "at the expense" of her shiftless, wife-beating, sloth of a husband's loss of his place as "head" of the household.)
Yes, there are many good things that Christians are standing up for or taking action against, but there's a lot more that we're not. We need to look at what needs to be said and done TODAY in the face of the evil that is still going on NOW.
Posted By: Christian Lawyer | January 16, 2010 4:42 PM
Hiding Jews during WWII? How about this: would I have just sat in church, as many "good" Germans did, and sung the hymns all the more loudly to block out the cries of the passing Jew-filled cattlecars transporting their cargo to the local death camp? I remember reading this account, published in CT by one of their guest essayist years ago. Which of us would have lifted a finger to help total strangers if doing so meant we - and probably our family - would have met a similar fate as theirs? During the Rawandan genocide in 1994 I kept wondering why our country sat idly by and did nothing. Later Pres. Clinton, when asked the same question, said he didn't know anything about it at the time. His answer reflected what he really was as a politician. The evil enacted upon whole populations of innocents are too numerous to recount. We could just as easily ask: would I have helped the Chinese fleeing Mao or the White Russians fleeing Stalin, or the Cambodians fleeing Pol Pot. We can speculate what we would have done "then". But what are we doing now?
Posted By: Dan | January 17, 2010 8:13 AM
I would even now.For you know in your heart the jews are not bad people, or at least not illegally. It is called safety. As the woman had hid Mary and Joseph and Jesus ( as he was a baby) until they could get away. I believe sometimes you have to take risk as you want God to use you as one of his angels. One night my son that is just now learning to drive was driving. A black car was coming down the road with no head lights, he saw it I didn't. This got me upset that he was just sitting there and not going. We did all we could with out getting out to let her know her lights weren't on. I live in a crime filled area with guns. Not really sure what would happen I still got out of my car and had to let her know from a distance her lights were not on. She was dumbfounded. She had children in the car at the age of Middle school to elementary. She finally did turn them on. That was a thank you God through Jesus with the safety net around me and my children as well that could have been in danger with me
Posted By: Trish | January 20, 2010 9:02 AM
My grandparents,my uncles and my mom's entire family
were the victims of the Armenian Genocide.My mom was
9 years old then.She lived many decades to tell us
about the love of God through "strangers",the americans.
As a naturalized US citizen,I am grateful.I am also
very patriotic....
To your question:my mom would defenitely help the Jews.
I hope I would do the same with God's help.
Posted By: margo | January 21, 2010 10:01 PM
I would have hid Jews. It is definitely a huge sacrifice to make, but when you think about how easily you could have been born into a Jewish family (after all, you weren't alive then), the choice is quite clear. The greatest inspiration of all is my great grandmother from Italy. During world war two (Bombs were shaking the ground and landmines were planted in neighbors' yards) everyone was starving. She had 5 hungry children of her own, but gave her only roll of bread to her neighbor's newborn baby to mix with water and make formula because they didn't have milk.
My nonna is a saint and she is still alive and healthy today. I believe it is because God rewarded her and her children.
Posted By: A | September 16, 2010 1:56 PM