A prayer for getting along

It was never an easy thing to do. Even though the Jewish people didn't know the whole truth about wherever they were going, they knew enough to understand that having been demanded to meet in a city park and taking with them but one little suitcase, middle of the night--they knew they weren't going on a hayride. They were going to be taken somewhere they didn't want to go. They wanted to stay home. 

Some of the lucky ones--the Dutch lost a higher percentage of their Jewish citizens than any other occupied nation in Europe--some few lucky ones got stolen away by daring friends who actively opposed what they couldn't help but see as horrifying injustice. 

Some got themselves transported out into the country, to farms and small towns where before the war very few of the locals had seen a Jew. But then, most rural folks didn't see a Jew out there later because the Jewish families were all hidden away, afraid not only of the SS, but also the Dutch Nazis who were often worse than the Germans who ran operations, more hated at least. The Dutch Nazis knew very well that if and when they were could find hidden Jews, they'd be recipients of the very farms where those Jews had been hidden. You risked a great deal--even your life--if you hid Jews, had lots to gain by turning them in.

What many people don't talk much about is the burden it was for big Dutch families or even bachelor farmers to hide Jews. Let's be clear--most Jews in the Netherlands were city-dwellers for generations. There weren't many synagogues out in Friesland and beyond. Dutch Jews were citified and often highly educated and well off. Dutch farmers or sailors, the Dutch cultural matrix from which I originate, were a foreign legion to sophisticated Jewish city-dwellers. 

And the plain fact of the matter is that everyone assumed the war wasn't going to last all that long--a number of weeks maybe, if that, and the whole business would be settled and over with.

One of Mark Twain's finest lines makes the claim that guests, like fish, start to stink after three days. Consider this: lots and lots of rural folk had houseguests that didn't leave for four long years. Sometimes hosts and guests just didn't get along all that well, or didn't much like each other either. Diet Eman used to tell me that her buggiest problem in taking care of the Jews they had hidden in all those farm places was interpersonal. Hosts and guests were all Dutch; they shared a common enemy and a common language, but in many ways they were not at all alike. But there they were, jammed together, the Jews hidden away so they never, ever saw the light of day. There were no choices. No one could leave without everyone being in danger of their lives.

And there are stories of exploitation, too, stories of abuse, stories of unrighteous acts. Heroism is heroism, but it's not always angelic.

Last night a news program featured the wonderful and warm reception of a schoolroom full of Ukrainian kids being welcomed--applauded-- as they walked into a brand new school for them in Italy. The kids made the guests feel loved. Brought tears to my eyes.

But I remember the understandable complications that occurred in occupied Holland during the war, hosts and guests padlocked together when they found it impossible to live with each other without, well, bitching.

Today, thousands of families have strangers beneath their roofs, maybe for the first time, people who don't speak their language and have only what their hosts can spare from their own cupboards. People who have no idea how long they'll be there or where they'll be a month from now.

Bless them, Lord, bless them all with courage and patience and a helping of your own divine will. Bless them with peace and an open heart that simply won't fill up or shut down. Bless 'em all, Lord. Bless 'em, every one.