Reading "Twenty and Ten"

I read Twenty and Ten. Twenty and Ten was fun to read. Well, not really, a little bit. So it was about there were some kids hiding from the Nazis. They had some Jewish friends with them. They wanted to hide the Jewish friends so they teased the soldiers and told them that themselves they were the Jewish people and so a shot came through the window — I guess a soldier was trying to shoot at them. The kids did a brave thing.

I went to listen to a lady talk. Her name was Diet Eman. She said that she helped some Jewish ladies hide from the Nazis so that was a very good thing Diet Eman did.

Note from Mom: I learned that Diet (pronounced Deet) would be speaking in Grand Rapids to a group of homeschooling families on my birthday, so I asked that a trip to see her be my gift. To prepare Addy, we read Twenty and Ten, which was part of this year's curriculum anyway. We only read it earlier than scheduled. In the story, a group of 20 French schoolchildren sent to live in the country with a nun during the war decided to hide 10 Jewish children. They showed great courage in doing so. That story is historical fiction, but based on real accounts of the war. The book gave Addy the general idea of who the Nazis were, though she keeps saying Yahtzees like the dice game.

We listened to Diet speak on Tuesday night. Addy had a really hard time deciphering her thick Dutch accent, but I assured her she will appreciate the experience when she is older. Now age 87, in her early 20s Diet was part of the Dutch resistance during World War II. She and her fiance coordinated the effort to hide hundreds of Jews from the Nazis, finding homes in the countryside of Holland and stealing ration cards and identification for them. She was eventually captured by the Gestapo and held prisoner. Her fiance was killed. She survived and now lives in Grand Rapids.

Bob thought it was quite an understatement that during several parts of her talk, she explained, "That was a terrible time."

Just this February, Diet was granted U.S. citizenship. She said filling out the forms was challenging: Have you ever been in prison? "Yes." Have you ever been deported? "Yes." Have you ever tried to topple a foreign government? "Yes." General Eisenhower had personally signed a letter of thanks to her on behalf of the United States of America for helping Allied forces escape, so she included a copy of that letter with her application. Citizenship granted.

I hope to read Diet's book, Things We Couldn't Say. I also understand that as part of his MSU master's thesis, a man filmed a documentary about Diet and others' efforts in the Netherlands during the Holocaust called Making Choices.