It is difficult to fathom a place and time in the past when a small cadre of school students had the moral resolve to risk their lives for the escape of Jews from Nazi tyranny in WW II.  

The heroes of this story didn’t protect their own lives or the lives of their loved ones, they protected Jews, in particular helpless Jewish children, at the risk of their own lives.

Part I of the Dutch resistance movement in WWII was archived in the best-selling book The Hiding Place [Bantam Books 1974].  That text tells the story of Cory ten Boom who hid Jews form the Nazi’s in her home in The Netherlands during the war. 

The Hiding Place: The ... Corrie Ten Boom Best Price: $1.16 Buy New $5.94 (as of 01:25 UTC - Details) Part II of that story is a young Dutch student’s recall of the events centered around Corrie ten Boom’s home, the account of student journalist Hans Poley, one of ten Boom’s volunteer army of teenagers, as told in the book Return To The Hiding Place [Chariot Family Publishers 1993]. 

That book has been turned into a suspenseful movie loaded with intrigue, treachery, miraculous escapes and daring rescues of helpless Jewish children that is now being released on DVD. [ChristianCinema.com]

The Dutch Resistance that existed then was not working in league with Allied forces.  It was a rag-tag group of volunteers who morally revolted against the inhuman persecution and elimination of Jewish people.   

It is too easy to avoid the extermination of one sect of people as long as our own lives are not threatened.  The Dutch reasoned if there was no resistance against the Nazi’s then they would not stop with the Jews.  One line in the movie script provides the moral of this story: “Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.” Return to the Hiding P... Poley, Hans Best Price: $1.10 Buy New $16.88 (as of 08:30 UTC - Details)

Young students today cannot possibly fathom the risks these young Dutch students took

As an online video offered by the Corrie ten Boom Museum asks:  “Is it possible for people from different faiths to live together; to laugh together; pray together; and sacrifice their lives for one another?  Is it possible to live a life of self-sacrifice even to the point of death?  Is it possible to lay down your life for a friend or even a stranger?   To forgive your enemies?  To love your enemies?  In a world of division and ethnic war it may appear such attitudes are not humanely possible.  Answers to these questions were found on a quiet street in Haarlem, Holland.  Answers to these questions can rewrite the stories that are yet to be told.  It is one of the most remarkable stories ever told.  [tenboom.com] 

Readers won’t fully appreciate what happened over 60 years ago in Corrie ten Boom’s home without first viewing the story as told by student Hans Poley in Return To The Hiding Place.  [View Trailer]