#diet eman

[novelmonger]

Book Review: Things We Couldn't Say by Diet Eman

Thanks to @valiantarcher for giving me this recommendation for the 2024 Book Rec Exchange!

This is the autobiography of Diet Eman, a Dutch woman who lived through the German occupation during WWII. She tells her story, interspersed with diary entries and letters, and the whole thing feels like I'm sitting in her living room in Grand Rapids (where she moved after the war), listening to an old grandma telling her tales. The book is written in such a conversational, approachable way that sucks you in, making it so easy to imagine what it must have been like to live through those harrowing years.

Diet Eman came from a Christian family, and that was one of the things I appreciated most in this book. Through the whole thing runs the current of her faith and trust in God. Even when she suffered through fear, loss, and deprivation of so many kinds, even when she angrily demanded to know why God would let so much suffering continue, she never ultimately lost her faith in God's goodness or his presence with her and faithfulness to her. That was so inspiring - and just as Diet would remind herself of all the promises God had made to His people, none of which were ever broken, now I can add Diet's story to my repertoire of all the times throughout history that God has taken care of His people. That's such a blessing.

A fun surprise is that Diet's path crossed briefly with Corrie Ten Boom's! I read The Hiding Place years ago, and it's always been a huge inspiration as well. (The story of them thanking God for the lice has always stuck with me particularly strongly - what a good reminder to give thanks in all circumstances!) Diet got involved with the underground resistance movement, gathering news from the outside world from contraband radios and then hiding Jews and helping them survive the war. Because of this work, she finally ended up getting arrested and held in prison for a while, then sent to a concentration camp - one that Corrie Ten Boom and her sister stayed at briefly before being sent to Ravensbruck. So that was a cool overlap, even though Diet didn't have a whole lot of interaction with them.

Despite the very heavy subject matter and occasional twists that felt like a punch to the gut, I also appreciated the occasional spots of humor and just...humanity that Diet put in her story. It's inspiring, encouraging, sobering, and thrilling all at once. Highly recommended, especially for those who liked The Hiding Place.

[valiantarcher]

Why should I go to people if I can go to him who said, "Come unto me all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Heavy laden — that's what I am. Laden with pride, often thinking myself better than others while we have to think the other one better than ourselves. Laden with my own egotism. Laden with all my sins. And when I went to bed last night and thought about everything and wanted to bring all those difficulties to God, I couldn't even find the words! I thought, I'm going to tell him everything just as if he were standing next to my bed and listening, for that's where he is. But I didn't even know where to start. But I also knew he knew it all already. [...] And now, when Mother called to wake me up for the New Year, I first wanted to pray, but it turned into thanks, darling, for all that God had given us this year. For his wonderful ways with us, even if we don't understand it all now. For his love, that in all our disappointments and sorrow he himself helps us to bear it all, so that all this turns into a blessing because we feel his nearness and can take up our cross joyfully. And so we may know, and we do experience, that his power is made perfect in our weakness.

Diet Eman, Things We Couldn’t Say.

Diet wrote this to her fiancé in her journal on December 31, 1944. The disappointments and sorrows for the year that she mentioned include her fiancé being arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps since April (thereby missing their planned wedding), her own arrest and imprisonment in a concentration camp for about four months, having to live under an assumed identity since she was sought by the Germans for Resistance work under her real name, isolation due to her work (including being unable to visit her family for more than a very occasional night), the arrests and deaths of a number of her friends due to Resistance work, walking all over the Netherlands with false IDs, stolen ration cards, etc. because the Germans kept stealing her bicycles, and general hunger, malnutrition, and illness.

[novelmonger]

I knew very clearly that both sides in every war say that God is on their side. In many wars, God isn't on any sides--he's crying.

- Diet Eman, Things We Couldn't Say

[novelmonger]

Fortnight of Books, Day 9

Favorite non-romance relationship:

I really really liked the siblings in A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus. Just like some of my favorite books from childhood, these three kids all get along fairly well and look out for each other because they know they're all they've got, as orphans during wartime. I also really liked their relationship with the woman who would become their new mother.

Best non-fiction book:

The real answer is One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, but because I've already talked about that a lot so far, I'll mention my second-favorite nonfiction from this year, Things We Couldn't Say by Diet Eman. It's the autobiography of a Dutch woman's experiences during WWII, including all the ways she helped the underground resistance against the Nazis. I'm always interested in learning more about WWII, and I quickly grew to love her gutsy, spunky personality as well as her steadfast faith (and how forthright she was about the things that were still difficult despite her faith).

[idratherdreamofjune]

By 1943 the group we worked with needed over 800 [ration] cards every month. The men from the knokploeg did that work, and of course it was very dangerous. But they did it for good reason, not simply because it was high adventure. I went to a few of their planning meetings, and those men always got down on their knees first to ask God to protect and help them. They said: “Lord this is necessary. We need those cards. Please protect us, and grant that there be no shooting—and that nobody gets hurt.” After the prayer they executed an armed robbery. That sounds very strange this many years later: prayer and then armed robbery.

Things We Couldn’t Say, Diet Eman

One way the Underground (WWII resistance in the Netherlands) obtained ration cards for hidden Jews.

[idratherdreamofjune]

If I did not know that you do this out of grace, it would nearly scare me to receive such blessings.

Part of a prayer from her diary, Diet Eman, Things We Couldn’t Say

[idratherdreamofjune]

The question 'Are we going to obey?' had to be asked and answered, asked and answered, over and over again.

Diet Eman, on the Nazi’s edicts, in Things We Couldn’t Say

[valiantarcher]

When my friend Freddie heard [that Diet had been summoned by a soldier], she knew I was going to my hearing. The two of us had this spiritual tie, and we had confided some things to each other. We knew and trusted each other so much that as soon as she heard that call, she pretended that she had diarrhea and flew toward me on her way to the toilet. While she was passing me, she whispered, "Willie, I'm going to storm the gates of heaven for you." And off she went to the bathroom. I followed that officer, but what she'd said hit me very hard. "I'm going to storm the gates of heaven for you." It was such a great comfort to me that she wasn't going to be merely praying — she was storming!

Diet Eman, Things We Couldn’t Say.

Diet (under the name Willie Laarman) was imprisoned in Vught Concentration Camp during the summer of 1944 for having a false ID. Diet was heavily involved with the Dutch Resistance and was wanted under her real name for her work. Diet met Freddie Ponger (a young Catholic woman, imprisoned for unstated reasons) at Vught and she became one of the very few people Diet trusted there.