From Max Lucado and his book “Unshakable Hope”::
Early in the morning hours of May 10, 1940, Diet Eman awoke to what sounded like the beating of rugs. As the popping continued, the twenty-year old Dutch girl climbed out of bed and scrambled with her parents to the front lawn. German planes buzzed through the sky and rained bullets on The Hague. Hitler had assured the people of the Netherlands that he would respect their neutrality. That became yet another of Hitler’s broken promises.
After getting back inside the family turned on the radio and heard, “We are at war. German paratroopers have landed.” Diet immediately thought of her boyfriend, Hein. The two had much in common. Both raised in Christian homes, both were loyal to their homeland, and both were incensed at the German oppression of he Jews.
Not all Dutch believers were. Some advocated for a plan to avoid conflict and trust the will of God. But for Hein and Diet, the will of God was clear. Hein knew the Mein Kampf message. He told Diet, “[Hitler’s] so full of hate, he’s going to do something terrible!” By the end of 1941 the Nazis required Jews to wear yellow and banned them from travel. Many were receiving deportation to Germany.
Diet was contacted by a Jewish man who asked for assistance. She and Hein knew that the risk to them was great. If they were caught, it could mean death. But they helped him anyway and arranged for him to go to Friesland to live with a farmer until the war was over.
What began assistance to one man grew to a plan to help others. The stakes grew higher and higher. Hein spoke of contingency plans, of what to do if he was arrested. In one conversation Diet sensed an inner voice saying, You’d better have a good look at him. Three days later on April 26,1944, he was arrested and carried off to prison .
Diet altered her appearance and identification. His tactics were not enough. Within a few weeks she found herself in prison as well, where her only hope was the promises of God. One day she used a bobby pin and scratched the words of Jesus into the prison’s brick wall: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end” (Matt. 28:20 KIV)
A few weeks later she, along with many other prisoners were transferred to a concentration camp. There were few rations and no soap, towels or toilet paper. At times she wondered if she was loosing her mind. When she was finally given a hearing, she rehearsed the story she would tell the Nazis, she clung to two promises she remembered from Scripture: not a hair of her head would be touched (Luke 21:18), and she needn’t fear when she appeared before the authorities (Matthew 10:19). She was allowed to go back to the barracks that day, and two weeks later she was freed.
Hein, however, was in Dachau. One of his fellow prisoners told Diet that Hein displayed an inner beauty, that he love life and loved Christ. He became weak at the end, so weak that he could not work. He was removed from the barracks and never seen again.
She did receive one more message. Sometime before his death Hein had scribbled a note on a piece of toilet paper, wrapped in brown paper, addressed it, and thrown it from a window of a prisoner transport train. Someone found it and, amazingly, put it in the mail.
The note read: Darling, don’t count on our seeing each other again soon. . . . Here we see again that we don’t decide our own lives. . . . even if we don’t see each other on earth, we will never be sorry for what we did, that we took this stand, and know Diet, that of every last human being it the world, I loved you most.2
In my mind’s eye I envision young Diet lying in her bed, running her finger across the words she etched into the wall. The prisoners are hungry. Her stomach growls, and her body is weak. But she chooses to focus on this promise, this inheritance: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end.”
I try to imagine the sight of Hein in Dachau. Men with skeletal frames roam around the prison yard. The scent of death is in the air, and Hein knows his time is short. In what must have been a final opportunity to write, he dips a pen in the inkwell of hope and scribbles, “We will never be sorry for what we did.”
Where did this couple quarry such courage? Where did they find their hope? How did they avoid despair? Simple. They trusted God’s great promises. What about you? What message are you carving on the wall? What words are you writing ? Choose hope, not despair. Choose life, not death. Choose God’s promises. It’s time for you to live our your inheritance. ~~~Max Lucado, “Unshakable hope” (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, Tennessee 2018) p. 43-45
