Posted on 07/02/2006 2:11:41 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK - Jaap Penraat, an architect and industrial designer who helped 406 Jews sneak out of Nazi-occupied Netherlands and withstood torture to protect fellow members of the resistance, has died. He was 88.
Penraat died June 25 at his home in Catskill, N.Y., of esophageal cancer, said his daughter, Noelle Penraat.
Penraat was in his 20s when he began forging identity cards for Jews. He was arrested, imprisoned for several months and tortured, but refused to tell his captors anything.
After his release from prison, Penraat and other resistance members disguised Jews as construction workers hired to work on the defensive wall that Nazi forces were building along France's Atlantic Coast. He made 20 trips accompanying groups of refugees to Lille, France, where the Jews were met by the French underground and sent on to neutral Spain.
Speaking about his wartime experiences years later, Penraat said he had simply done what seemed necessary.
"You do these things because in your mind there is no other way of doing it," he told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2000.
Of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands before the Nazis invaded, only about 30,000 survived. Poland was the only nation that lost a larger percentage of its Jewish population.
After the war, Penraat became a noted designer in Amsterdam, then moved to the United States in 1958.
He is survived by three daughters, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
There was a day when many Europeans had a sense of honor and decency.That era passed long ago,I fear.
Today's liberals are comparable to the Nazi collaborators who looked the other way.
Modern liberals haven't liberated anyone from oppression, rescued anybody from tragic deaths in the hands of tyranny, or altered the power dynamics in third world countries in favor of conditions that will help with reducing poverty.
And yet, today's liberals dress themselves in the deeds and sacrifices of men like this man, and then claim moral superiority for their agenda of appeasement.
ping
Yeah, today's liberals are openly and covertly supporting the conspiracy against freedom by protecting the rights of the obviously guilty, while these heroes of yesterday just managed to keep their humanity against a monstrous propaganda machine, doing what was necessary to protect the obviously innocent. God bless them.
Amen.
Yes, a great man has died. Far too many today do not even aspire to such greatness and shrink from even the smallest challenge or discomfort. The libs play on this when they attempt to play up the (comparatively) small losses we have suffered so far. It makes you sick and angry to think about it.
Yes, a great man has died. Far too many today do not even aspire to such greatness and shrink from even the smallest challenge or discomfort. The libs play on this when they attempt to play up the (comparatively) small losses we have suffered so far. It makes you sick and angry to think about it.
Rest in peace.
Sad, he visited out school two years ago, and talked about his experiences. A real hero
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.