I would stand there at times and remember how beautiful God created this world, and then I would be reassured that he would certainly take care of me and all of my loved ones.

That was one other time when my whole body reacted to the fear and went out of my own control. My nerves came apart completely, and I started vomiting and vomiting. I couldn’t stop. It...

The greatest miracle was that in the end I could actually feel pity for those men because they were so deluded: they thought they had power and really they had nothing. I will never forget...

To me it was real war and my life was at stake, and I believe that all those clandestine spy games we played as children helped when the Occupation came.

(Thinking while being interrogated by the Germans) You big shots think you can decide on my life, but I have news for you: you can’t touch a hair on my head without the will of...

The sound of natural things was wonderful to us. In the middle of all the suffering, it seemed pure, untouched.

I had great pity on Ansje, because she always acted very happy, but I believed that it was really a front. I could see through it. Inside she was crying because she was really very...

O Father, console them and please spare our country from that terrible disaster, not because we are any better but only out of grace. And if it has to be different, then teach me to...

Yesterday the paper had a “short” summary of the places where Jews are not allowed! I can better mention where they are still aloud: “in their houses and in the streets!” God, punish those who...

You should not try to live without thinking and feeling, for then you are only a piece of machinery, not a human being. Even if it hurts. Even if the thing you have to think...

Those women who had gone out with Germans were grabbed and treated very badly, often shaved totally bald so that everyone could see who they were. Some were taken prisoners. There had been so much...

After the prayer they executed an armed robbery. That sounds very strange this many years later: prayer and then armed robbery.

And now, when Mother called to wake me up for the New Year, I first wanted to pray, but it turned into thanks, darling, for all that God had given us this year. For his...

If you dont speak, they will know you know more than you’re telling them. And if they know that, they’ll find a way to get what you know out of you. Believe me, they’ll get...

By the end of the war, I could pick out Jewish people almost as if I had a sixth sense about it, even if they had blue eyes and blond hair. I would have been...

It was always exciting, but it was also always dangerous. And fear takes a toll finally: when you live in danger from moment to moment, the constant tension becomes very wearying. Every step I took...

The worst is, I remain so stone cold. Does this war make you an ‘alive-dead person’? Is it not possible to remain yourself in this chaos? How long still?

Her face expressed suffering so deep that I will never forget it; her eyes radiated a deep sadness…Mrs. Folmer was oppressed by that special sadness, perhaps the most horrible torture, of those who had no...

Heavy laden — that’s what I am. Laden with pride, often thinking myself better than others while we have to think the other one better than ourselves. Laden with my own egotism. Laden with all...

(regarding what kind of day she would want to be released) If I had the opportunity to choose, I would want it to be a radiant sunshiny day! And I would love it to be...

The worst fear in the hearings was that you would get some evil interrogator: you could never know what might happen then. No one who lives in a free country will ever understand that kind...

I lay there for three whole days, totally paralyzed. My friends helped me to the bathroom and anywhere else I needed to move; but I have very vague impressions of those days because it was...

Life is like a film screen: pictures come, make an impression, go, and then make a place for new pictures with new impressions which obscure the previous ones. Some of those old pictures fade, but...

Because your character is always full of ambition, the news of my being locked up must have been much harder on you than it was on me. When I was arrested, it was almost a...

I’m sorry to say it, but it was hard on me to see life continue all around.

Darling, if I think of all I miss now, I will go crazy. I should not think of that. I only want to think of all that I still have, and then I am rich....

It stank pretty bad, of course: manure was caked all over the wagon. But we were free. Right then I was elated with a sense of how faithful God is to his promises; I was...

But miracles still happen, even if we don’t think they do.

I had no real communication with anyone at the time, so I was totally dependent on God. And he never failed me.

And here we see again that we do not decide our own lives. Dieneke, even if we won’t see each other again on earth, we will never be sorry for what we did, that we...

All during that prison time I really lived by prayer. Be in prayer always, we’re told, and back then I was.

I felt peace, even though I was still scared to death. I thought that, whatever would happen to me – I could still be killed. I didn’t know – and in what I’d already been...

Again, a conversation with the doctor. We always come back to the same point: “The church may not mix in politics.” he says. And I tell him that when you are a Christian and profess...

Being exhausted, yet keeping up the pursuit.’ (Judges 8:4) Even after what I had said of wanting out, even after that humiliation, the physical exhaustion, the deep despair I felt, those words were my new...

There I was out in the barn playing midwife to a pregnant mare. I remember sitting there, spinning yarn in the light of a little oil lamp, a city girl who knew nothing about farming,...

They thought we were stupid to do it, (hide Jews) of course; in fact, it was beyond their comprehension that we would risk so much for Jews.