Corrie and Cristabel

I've been looking over my last several posts, and noticed that I've been writing quite a bit lately about human compassion.  I've discussed the compassion I received from a sweet couple who helped me through the loss of my pet bird, and the complete absence of compassion from a meter man downtown.  Today, with your permission, I'd like to look at it again, this time combined with my other latest obsession:  history!  Tell me what you think of this...

My husband recently purchased a box set DVD version of the fantastic 1973 miniseries documentary, The World At War.  This take on World War II may not be as well-produced as the more recent Ken Burns version on the same subject, but it was made less than thirty years after the war's end.  Many of the subjects interviewed for the film are actual eyewitnesses, participants in what transpired during that time.  The memories of all they endured are fresh, they haven't yet aged enough to have forgotten precious details. I think all this makes this particular documentary a real treasure, indeed.

Alan has been viewing the DVDs in our basement each time he works out.  This morning I joined him there and watched today's installment as I ran on the treadmill.  Today's chapter was titled, "Inside the Third Reich:  Germany 1940-1944," and I knew before I hit mile two that I was going to write about it here today.

The film covered the usual Adolf Hitler rantings at the podium and the high stepping soldiers saluting their fuhrer as they marched by his grandstand.  Then the focus shifted towards the oppressing and eventual rounding-up of the Jewish community, relocating them to ghettos, then to the gas chambers of concentration camps.

They interviewed a German housewife, Hertha Beese, who described opening her door one evening and discovering a Jewish couple standing there, asking for her help.  She said from that moment forward she became part of this "invisible community" that helped so many Jews escape a horrible fate.

Then a woman appeared onscreen with a furrowed brow and troubled face.  As she spoke, she wrung her hands and clenched her fists.  Her name was Christabel Bielenberg, and here, in her exact words, is the tale she told:

"One day, a friend of ours who used to collect food cards for these Jews, came to me with another woman with dyed blonde hair.  I can see her sitting there now, twisting her wedding ring and telling me that it wouldn't be for long, that she would help me in the house, and her husband need never go out.  He would live in the cellar or wherever."

Not knowing what to do, Cristabel consulted her neighbor and trusted friend, Carl, who told her the risk to herself and her family was far too great, and to forget the whole idea of helping this Jewish couple.

"I was astonished, overcome really, at the response that I got from my neighbor who told me that under NO circumstances, WHATSOEVER, could I house these people, that housing of Jews meant concentration camps not only for myself, but for my husband, possibly also for my children.  I can remember going through and out into the road.  And out of the darkness came a voice saying, 'Have you decided?'  and I simply couldn't say no.  I just said, 'Well, I can't for longer than two days.'  And I let him into the cellar.  They stayed for two days, and after the second day, in the morning they were gone.  The cellar was empty, the bed I had set up, all tidily arranged, and they had gone.  I knew later that they were caught buying a ticket at the railway station and were transported to Auschwitz [concentration camp].  And why I say this is the most painful and terrible story for me to have to tell is because after they left, I realized that Hitler had turned me into a murderer."

Alan finished his work out, returned the TV to the local news, handed me the remote, and went back upstairs.  I kept pounding out my miles, watching the weather forecast.  But I just couldn't shake the image of Christabel's sad, regretful face from my mind.  I wondered what I would've done if I were in her shoes, back in 1940's Germany.  Would I have taken-in someone, anyone who came to me for help, even if it meant my own (and my family's) demise?  Oh, I hope so.  I pray that I would be so strong, but could I?

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the legendary Corrie Ten Boom, concentration camp survivor and author of her autobiography, The Hiding Place.  Corrie and her family helped several Jews escape from their Nazi occupied town of Haarlem, in the Netherlands.  They were eventually caught and sent to Ravensbruck camp in Germany, and all but Corrie perished there. Legend has it that Corrie's father, Kaspar, an elderly man, was approached by a German soldier as they were being arrested for harboring Jews.  Due to Kaspar's advanced years, the soldier offered to let him go, if he promised to cease with all Jew-aiding activity.  Mr. Ten Boom, sitting on the truck, told him he would open his home to any man who needed his help, including a Jewish one.  The soldier closed the door and instructed the driver to take him away.  Kaspar died in the camp ten days later.

For the remainder of her life, Corrie Ten Boom lived with a number tatooed on her forearm, along with the emotional scars of losing her entire family and enduring unspeakable horrors at that camp.  But the night she was arrested, every one of the Jews she was hiding behind the wall of her bedroom successfully escaped to freedom, as did many before them.  Cristabel Bielenberg lived with the burden of a decision she still regretted thirty years later.  Her furrowed brow and wringing hands gave away a tremendously troubled soul, indeed.

I hope none of us are ever forced to make this kind of unthinkable decision ourselves.  But if you did, how would you choose?  Could you live with your decision?