Behind the Fireplace: Memoirs of a Girl Working in the Dutch Resistance
Andrew Scott · Grietje Okma Scott
Apr 2020 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Esther Wane
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5 hr 8 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
As World War 2 progressed, the Okma family took six Jewish refugees into their house, hiding them in a secret room behind their fireplace. The youngest daughter, Kieks, joined the Resistance, delivering illegal newspapers, guiding British parachutists around The Hague and preparing safe houses for Special Forces who were dropped in from England. As the War continued, she fell in love with a Resistance commander, and worked with him to rescue wounded colleagues, steal weapons from German arms dumps, and move weapons around the country. They had a tumultuous parting and she continued her work, acting as a courier with a two hundred km bike ride to the north of Holland. When she returned home, she appreciated how much the war had changed her and her boyfriend, and prepared to try a reconciliation. She escaped a firing squad four times, and survived the war, mentally scarred by her experiences. She sought help, but the help she was offered came in a poisoned chalice, and she kept her secret to herself for almost fifty years. Her family in Holland was recognized by Yad Vashem, the Israeli organization that records those who saved Jews from the Holocaust, and she was awarded a pension for her work in the Resistance by the Dutch foundation Stichting 1940-1945.
About the author
Andrew Scott works as a research scientist in a technology company, and spends his spare time at the local rowing club. He is coauthor, with Grietje Okma Scott, of Behind the Fireplace.
Grietje Okma Scott is coauthor, with Andrew Scott, of Behind the Fireplace: Memoirs of a Girl Working in the Dutch Resistance.
Esther Wane is a British actor and voice-over artist who has narrated audiobooks in a variety of genres, including memoir, politics, romantic fiction, and children's literature. She has a lifelong passion for literature and can often be found browsing bookshops at any spare moment.
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