A Child at Bedtime

“For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then will relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house will perish: and who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” — Esther 4:14 (ASV)

In the early hours of 10 May 1940, German forces crossed the Dutch border. The Dutch army was small and fought bravely for five days. On 14 May German bombers destroyed the centre of Rotterdam, killing hundreds of civilians, and threatened to do the same to other cities. On 15 May the Netherlands surrendered. Queen Wilhelmina and her government had already escaped to London.

At first, ordinary life in Haarlem went on. Shops opened, trains ran, and the ten Booms took in watches for repair. For the Jews of the Netherlands, about 140,000 people, it was a different story. Step by step they were cut off. Jewish civil servants were dismissed. In 1941 every Jew had to register, and later their identity cards were stamped with a large J. They were banned from parks, cinemas, cafés, libraries and public transport. In May 1942 they were ordered to wear a yellow star with the word “Jood” on it. In July 1942 the deportations began, by train from a transit camp called Westerbork, most often to Auschwitz or Sobibor. By the end of the war more than 100,000 Dutch Jews had been murdered, about three out of every four.

What could an old watchmaker do? Casper was in his eighties. Betsie was in her fifties and not strong. Corrie was nearly fifty. They had no weapons, no influence and no money to speak of. When the yellow star came in, Casper meant to go and collect one for himself and wear it beside his Jewish neighbours. His family talked him out of it, since it would only have got him arrested. But his instinct was right. This was not happening to other people. It was happening to God's ancient people, the people the family had prayed for every week.

Corrie's own turning point, as she wrote it down in 1945, was tiny. She was visiting a Jewish doctor one evening when his little girl called down the stairs: he hadn't come up to tuck her in. The doctor went straight up, and Corrie heard him playing with the children before they slept. Sitting there, she realised that the secret police could come for this family any night. Right then, she wrote, she resolved to help the Jews wherever she could.

No vision, no voice. A child wanting to be tucked in, and a woman who decided she could not stand by.

The verse at the top is from Esther. When a powerful official got the Persian king to order the killing of all the Jews, Esther's cousin Mordecai told her two things at once. God does not depend on you: help will come “from another place.” And you are responsible for where God has put you. The ten Booms were not queens. Their position was a watch shop, a narrow house and a lot of friends. Same logic.

Be honest about this part. Most Dutch Christians did not do what the ten Booms did. The penalties were severe and the risks to your own family were real. Most of us would probably have kept our heads down too. That is exactly why this family matters. They weren't unusual people. What set them apart was a settled conviction that their neighbours' lives were their business before God.

Evil rarely asks you to do something monstrous all at once. It asks you to accept one small injustice, then another, and to stay quiet. Where you are right now, at school, online, in your family, may be your “such a time as this.”

One thing to do this week: watch for one moment when someone is being shut out, mocked or treated unfairly and everyone is going along with it. Do one small thing that refuses to go along: sit with them, say something, or tell an adult who can act.