A Tribute to a Special Lady

I fully intended to put this at the end of my post about my grandpa, but it just got too long. I didn't want to take away from that post, but I also didn't want anyone to possibly miss out on this story either, so I split them up. They were related in that my grandpa served in WWII and was part of the Dachau liberation, and this story has to do with the Holocaust, particularly in Poland.

Now I've taught my kids a lot of history from this time period, and in doing so I learned more than I ever did in school myself. It's difficult for me not to tear up whenever I am teaching this subject, but my kids already know I can be a crier. But it just breaks my heart, and I don't really mince too many words when I tell my kids about it, because I don't want them to look past the importance of that time and the sacrifices that so many people made.

As long as I can remember knowing about the Holocaust, I also remember Anne Frank and Corrie Ten Boom. When I was 13 years old (and I know that because I associate things, and I was wearing my full leg splint following my knee surgery from chipping my bone), my church showed The Hiding Place one night in the sanctuary. We sat on the right side, and if you walked straight out the door and a few steps forward you would go into the library. Eventually that night I had to leave the santuary and go sit in the library, because I simply couldn't handle the movie. It was just too sad and crushing and emotional for me, and to this day I have movie clips stuck in my head from 30 years ago.

I have no doubt that there were many, many people who were heroes during that time who were lost with little or no recognition. Would we have known as much about Corrie Ten Boom if she hadn't survived? Probably not. But what a witness she was all those years after the war, too.

That said, Hubby sent me a news clip a few weeks ago. I've been hanging on to it, like I said planning to associate it with the post about my grandpa, but not being able to work it in yesterday. I don't for a minute want to miss sharing it with you, because this story is about an amazing lady and what she did during the Holocaust in Poland, specifically in the Warsaw Ghetto.


I continue to be amazed by The Greatest Generation that stood for right in the face of wrong no matter what the cost.