Diet Eman, 1940.
Diet Eman
ON MAY 10, 1940, 20-year-old Diet Eman woke to what sounded like someone beating a rug with a mattenklopper (rug beater). But she suddenly realized that it was the middle of the night and that the “pop-pop-pop” sound was coming much too fast to be a Dutch housewife doing her chores.
Diet ran to join her father and mother, who were already standing outside in front of their house. In the night sky they could see an airplane battle. They ran back into the house and turned on the radio. It was true: Hitler had invaded the Netherlands, only a few hours after promising over Dutch radio that he wouldn’t. They were at war with Nazi Germany.
In spite of the danger, the next day Diet decided to bicycle to work at the bank as usual. She was surprised when she was stopped on the street by a Dutch policeman, who ordered her to slowly speak the words Scheveningen and schapenscheerder. The Dutch police were trying to weed out Germans posing as Dutch, who most likely would not be able to pronounce those Dutch words.
But no matter how many phony Dutchmen the police were able to find, the Germans kept coming. After five days of defensive fighting, and after the city of Rotterdam was bombed to the ground, the Netherlands surrendered to Germany.
When Diet first saw the German soldiers goose-stepping (marching in an ultramilitaristic way particular to the Nazis) into her city, The Hague, she vowed not to speak a word of German as long as the Germans remained, even though she could speak it fluently. She also stopped socializing with Dutch friends whose families were eager to entertain German soldiers in their homes, homes that were now decorated with portraits of Hitler.
But Diet wanted to do more than avoid the German language and Nazi sympathizers. She and her fiancé, Hein Sietsma, formed a Resistance group with some friends. At first, they just listened to the forbidden BBC broadcasts together and spread what they heard to as many people as they could. But when the Nazis began to enact laws against Dutch Jews, Diet’s Resistance work began in earnest.
She had a Jewish friend named Herman, who, because of a new Nazi edict, was not allowed to visit Diet’s family anymore because of his race. When Herman was ordered to report to the train station with other Jews so that they could all be “relocated” in the east, he asked Diet what he should do. When Diet asked Hein, Hein reminded her that many German Jews had committed suicide when Hitler had conquered the Netherlands. They obviously knew that the promises of relocation were a lie. Herman must hide. But where?
Hein said that he knew of many famers in an area of the Netherlands called the Veluwe who would be willing to hide Herman. Herman then asked Diet and Hein if they could also find a place for Herman’s fiancée, his mother, and his sister. News spread quickly that there were hiding places in the Veluwe and that Diet and Hein were taking people there. Within two weeks Diet and Hein were trying to find safe places for 60 people among the farmers of the Veluwe.
Soon Hein and Diet were both busy with Resistance work, usually apart from each other. Diet would deliver false identification papers and extra ration cards to whoever needed them, whether they were on a farm or in the city. There was one very small apartment in The Hague, rented by a middle-aged woman named Mies, which was being used to hide 27 Jews, an incredibly dangerous number. Even in the country, which was much safer than the bustling, populous city, there were never that many Jews hidden in one place. Diet regularly delivered extra ration cards to Mies but warned her repeatedly that it was just a matter of time before they were all discovered. Mies allowed Diet to move some of the Jews out of the apartment and into safer locations, but the next time Diet visited, Mies had taken in more Jews.
For her own safety, Diet decided to always phone the apartment before knocking at the door, to avoid being arrested herself. One day when Diet called, a strange man’s voice answered the phone. Diet hung up and tried again. Again, the man answered. After calling a third time and hearing the same voice, Diet went to the grocery store across the street from the apartment. Surely, if the Gestapo had raided the apartment, people in the store would be talking about it.
They were. Mies and all the Jews she had been hiding were now in the hands of the Gestapo. Mies had not only made the mistake of hiding too many Jews in her apartment, she had also kept a daily journal that included detailed descriptions of Diet’s visits. Diet had given herself the code name Toos for safety’s sake, and the Gestapo soon connected the dots between the Toos of Mies’s journal entries and Diet. It was no longer safe for Diet to go home.
She soon found refuge at a farm named Watergoor just west of Nijkerk, Gelderland. It was run by Aalt and Alie Lozeman, who used their farm to hide downed Allied pilots, onderduikers, and Jews. Some of the Watergoor guests, such as the Allied pilots, stayed only temporarily on their way out of the country, but others were permanent residents. Now Diet was one of these, and she had a new identity—Willie van Daalen.
Diet’s outward reason for staying with the Lozemans was to help Alie with the farmwork, and she did help whenever she was there, but she was usually on the road doing Resistance work. She traveled to and from all the farms in the Gelderland area that were hiding Jews, delivering ration cards and false ID cards. A man who was involved in collecting military information for the Dutch Resistance and the Allies asked Diet if she would help him collect this information while she traveled from place to place. She readily agreed, sending coded notes detailing Nazi troop movements and stores of military equipment.
Diet and Hein did not have much opportunity to be together since they were both very involved in Resistance work. But on one rare occasion, they finally got to spend an entire day together, biking and sharing a picnic. A few days later, on April 26, 1944, Hein was arrested. He had been caught carrying stolen ration cards and other items that clearly identified him as a member of the Resistance. He was able to smuggle out a note to warn everyone of his arrest, telling Diet to change her name again because the Gestapo had found papers on Hein that pointed them to a person named Willie van Daalen. Now Diet became Willie Laarman, an uneducated maid.
A few weeks later, Diet woke up certain that she would be arrested. But she couldn’t just stay home; she had work to do. She needed to deliver ration cards and blank ID cards, some of them for recently downed Allied airmen who needed to get back to England. She hid the envelope in her blouse.
Diet was traveling by train that day. While aboard the train, a German officer asked Diet for her ID. It was a new ID showing Diet’s identity as Willie Laarman. The officer could tell that it was false. Diet was asked to get off the train and waited on a bench with six officers sitting in a half-circle around her.
She knew that she would be searched, and upon the discovery of the packet of illegal documents in her blouse, she would be arrested, probably be shot, and then many others would likely be arrested. She needed to get rid of the envelope when the officers weren’t looking, but that was clearly impossible. She was surrounded.
She prayed, “If it is at all possible, grant that those six men give me half a minute so that I can get rid of this envelope.” Suddenly, one of the officers stood up, and another officer asked him about his raincoat, which was made of plastic, a material that was new at the time. The man with the coat opened it up so that they could all see the inside pockets of the coat. All six officers turned to look at the inside of the plastic raincoat. Diet pulled the envelope out of her blouse and threw it as far as she could.
Because she had been caught with a fake ID, Diet was taken to the prison in Scheveningen and then to the Vught concentration camp, where she was to be questioned. Knowing all along that she might be caught someday, Diet had always planned to remain silent. But while imprisoned in Scheveningen, she met an Allied spy, Beatrix Terwindt, who had been interrogated before and advised Diet to create a completely new story with a new identity and to carefully memorize the facts of this false story. Diet did this carefully for four months.
At Vught, Diet was given a job: cleaning bloody civilian clothing. As she was handed more and more garments, day after day, she made enquiries and discovered that she was cleaning the clothing of executed Dutch Resistance men. She examined the clothing more closely and discovered that the bullet holes were at the abdomen level. The resistance men had been deliberately shot in a manner that would cause a long, agonizing death.
At this point Diet’s hatred for the Nazis ballooned until it threatened the very core of her Christian identity. It seemed that the painful execution of these Dutch men was the only reward she would ever know for all her Resistance work and her fervent prayers for everyone’s safety. She began to doubt God’s goodness and became physically paralyzed for three days.
Soon afterward it was time for Diet’s hearing. A good friend and fellow prisoner had promised to “storm the gates of heaven” for Diet so that her hearing would go well. As Diet went through the hearing, pretending to be uneducated Willie Laarman, she gradually realized that the healthy German officers seated comfortably in that room, who were there to decide her fate, were the real prisoners, not she. She became convinced that God was on her side. Her hatred for these Germans melted into pity, and she was filled with an overwhelming peace.
She answered all of the questions asked of her with her carefully memorized details. Finally, when she was finished, one of the Germans who hadn’t said a word during the session looked at her closely and said, “I have done nothing else my whole life but hearings and interrogations. That is my area of expertise … and I have developed a sixth sense. I can feel what is true and what isn’t true. I can’t put a needle in your story. It fits—all the way through. But my sixth sense tells me that it’s all made up.”
Whether or not the Germans truly believed Diet’s story, they eventually decided to release her. She returned to the Lozemans’ farm, where she continued her Resistance work until the end of the war, more determined than ever to fight the Nazis.
Diet was overjoyed when Canadian troops eventually rolled past the farm, signaling the end of the Nazi regime, and she eagerly awaited news of Hein’s return. But he didn’t come back. She received news that he had died at the Dachau concentration camp after surviving two previous camps. Diet was heartbroken. She was comforted somewhat when she received letters from Hein’s fellow prisoners, telling Diet how inspirational and spiritually encouraging Hein had been. Nevertheless, Diet moved away from the Netherlands and didn’t speak of her Resistance work for many years.
Then, in 1978, Diet heard Corrie ten Boom (see page 116) speak about her wartime experiences and began to sense that she had a responsibility to tell her own story. After she spoke at a “Suffering and Survival” convention, she met Dr. James Schaap, who offered to help write her memoir, Things We Couldn’t Say, which was first published in 1994.
Hein Sietsma.
Diet Eman
Diet received a certificate of appreciation personally signed by General Eisenhower in 1946, which expressed gratitude “for gallant service in assisting the escape of Allied soldiers from the enemy.” In 1982, she received a letter from President Ronald Reagan that stated: “In risking your safety to adhere to a higher law of decency and morality, you have set a high and fearless standard for all those who oppose totalitarianism.” In 1998, she was granted the Righteous Among the Nations award by Yad Vashem.
Diet has lived in the United States for decades, became a U.S. citizen in 2007, and continues to receive many letters of gratitude from the families of those she helped rescue.
LEARN MORE The Reckoning: Remembering the Dutch Resistance (Vision Video, 2007). This DVD contains interviews with several former Dutch Resistance workers, including Diet Eman.
Things We Couldn’t Say by Diet Eman and James Schaap (Eerdmans, 1994).