Behind the Fireplace: Memoirs of a Girl Working in the Dutch Resistance

Written by Andrew Scott and Grietje Okma Scott

Narrated by Esther Wane

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Apr 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781977366146

Andrew Scott

Andrew J. Scott is Professor of Economics at the London Business School and consulting scholar at Stanford University's Center on Longevity, having previously held positions at Harvard and Oxford. Through his multi-award-winning research, writing and teaching, his ideas inform a global understanding of the profound shifts reshaping our world and the actions needed for us to flourish individually and as a society. Board member and advisor to a range of corporates and governments, he is co-founder of the Longevity Forum and a member of the advisory board of the Office for Budget Responsibility and the UK Cabinet Office Honours Committee. He lives in London.

Reviews for Behind the Fireplace

[Toby K · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Extraordinary. Humbling. Hard to imagine anyone surviving the chances against her

[Margaret · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Have such admiration for all those in the Resistance especially those people in this book & this family in particular that, with great risk to their own lives, were willing to stand up and do what was right by defying the Nazis and protect as many Jewish people as was possible. I'm so glad this true story of bravery and courage was able to be told.