Customer Reviews

Things We Couldn't Say

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Diet Eman was a young dutch woman during WWII in Holland. Her and her fiance were involved in the Dutch resistance movement. They helped Jews find homes/families to hide with in the Dutch countryside. This was a huge undertaking that required much teamwork. (For instance, the families that took in Jews would need extra ration cards to buy more food. Extra ration cards would have to be obtained and delivered to these families.) Diet literally rode hundreds (probably thousands!!) of miles on bicycles during the war coordinating this effort to keep Jews hidden in the countryside.

As Diet tells her story, there are frequent excerpts from the personal diary she kept during the war. And excerpts from postal letters she either sent or received during the war. This helped give the book a very "real" feel...You experience her first hand emotions and thoughts as these events were actually taking place.

Diet had a strong Christian faith. Her spiritual insights are deep and powerful. Her faith sustained her during this troubling time in history.

Diet was eventually caught by the Nazis and spent time in a jail and a concentration camp. She was briefly at the same camp as Corrie TenBoom, author of The Hiding Place. Diet survived, but her beloved fiance died in a concentration camp.

I highly recommend this book. Not only is it an exceptional historical account of life during WWII, but the spiritual (Christian) thoughts in it are very profound. While Diet was living through this horrific time period, the spiritual thoughts she recorded in her diary are incredibly mature. She was so young (early 20's) but was advanced beyond her years with spiritual perception. Her faith influenced her every thought.

Diet's story is not one just of the events during the Second World War, but a timeless story of the power of good over evil. She brings hope to the hearts of us all through her enormous capacity to love her fellow man enough to sacrifice every relationship she held dear. If you have an ounce of compassion you can not help but be touched by Diet's book. You will ask yourself over and over again, "Could I have done what she did? Lost what she lost and still held on to hope?" I recommend this book to everyone I know!

Focus on the Family radio station featured Diet Eman April 2001, during one of my drives to work. I heard a portion of the most gripping account of how Diet was arrested (with undiscovered stolen ration cards for hidden Jews and false ID cards for downed allied piolots). There she sat in a train station surrounded by six German soldiers, praying very hard for the grace of God to help her to get rid of those papers hidden in her bra, a sure death sentence. To distract one guard, or perhaps two, would be possible, but how would all six be distracted at the same time so that she could get rid of that envelope? I couldn't tune in to the radio the following day. I was left with the most exciting alternative, to read the book. Diet's story will dwarf anyone's troubles and serves to inspire how faith and reliance on God can manage the seemingly impossible while sculpting one's heart with a strong dose of humility.

Diet Eman's book won me over more than any book I've read in the past few years. At only 23, she helped organize a Dutch resistance movement that hid hundreds of Jews and supplied them with fake ration cards throughout World War II. She suffered incredibly to see justice done, even being thrown into a concentration camp for a year. Yet through her tragedies, through the death of her fiance, and the suffering she experienced knowing that her friends were being tortured and killed, her faith in God rarely wavered. Her miraculous answers to prayer are inspiring and moving. She says she was reluctant to write the book because she didn't want to bring up the memories of the horror she lived through in war-torn Holland. I am so glad that James Schaap offered to organize her story into this book. It has strengthened my own faith in God enormously.

Wow - what a book. Diet and her friends were certainly God's hands and heart in their work. They loved so big - so courageously. I would so like to meet her. It would be an honor to be able to talk with her about how she lived her faith out. To her it is so real.

Reading her book has made me wonder what she thinks - or what we think - of our "convenient lifestyle" as Americans. And how we treat each other. Diet risked her life many times for her neighbors - and I do not even know all of the people in my small neighborhood.

Thank you Diet for your writing your book. I am sure it was a struggle to put all of the stories back together in your mind and then write them out. Yeah for you.

Christ's peace,

Paula Gallagher Carlsbad CA

I have read more than 75 books of this genre depicting this period of history. "What would I have done under the same circumstances?" That is the question I am always asking of myself whilst reading these stories. This is the story of a group of people with the courage of their convictions...Diet's story is inspiring and touching. It illustrates perfectly that the power of prayer is undeniable and when 'all one can do is pray' one has done everything.

This is the most encouraging book I have ever read about the holocaust. It beckons the reader to stand up and do the right thing in the midst of an overpowering adversary. It is Diet Eman's story of love, adventure, and courage. It is a book written with a disarming openness that is founded in her faith in God. After reading this book, you can't help but admire and love this wonderful Christian woman and her fiance', Hein Sietsma.

Hein Sietsma died in Dachau on January 20, 1945.

I loved this book, it is so inspiring and really makes you count your blessings, that we aren't at war now, and for some of us have never had to live through a war! We can thank and praise God that He has been faithful, and also was faithful to Diet Eman and many others, He never left them. I recommend this book true story) to anyone.

I cannot emphasize, underline, or highlight ENOUGH how much you need to read this must-read of must-reads! This is the best story I've ever read and, hence, the best book I've encountered in my 22 years. To grasp true commitment to Christ and, therefore, to mankind is to read Hein and Diet's sacrificial walk of love. I would daresay that, granted the wish to meet one deceased person, Hein might very well be the one. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (Jn 15:13). Hein and Diet captured this verse's message and fearlessly followed...inspiration epitomized.

This book is an inspiration and I belive that Deit is one of the great role models we should have our kids look up to. I am an Orthodox Jew living in Israel. We are all G-d's children (we all stem from Noah)and Deit's love for mankind and her faith in G-d is an inspiration to anyone who reads her story. Sometimes we have to lose almost everything before we can make room for G-d. I just hope mankind never has to come to this point again, and that we find G-d and G-d's love and goodness through appreciation for the things we already have been blessed with - and not through pain and suffering. I am the daughter of a holocaust survivor from Poland and yet today we are fighting another evil. I pray that Westerners don't get too soft in their cushy and easy lives to fight the evil we face today through terrorism. Although life can be a challenge for anyone, whether they enjoy a relatively easy life or not, we need to find the strength of heroes like Deit, and not tolerate the hatred and intolerance coming out of the east. We need to realize just how easy, and how good we really have it today, yet have that strength within us to eradicate the terrorism we and others face today. This book makes one count their blessings. Thank you Deit and all others like you, Jews and Gentiles who had the stamina, bravery, and blessing to see to the defeat of the evil Nazi empire. May we see the defeat of the terrorists around the world today.