Jaap Penraat
Today is the Birthday of Jaap Penraat (burgunder, thanks for the reminder).
Jaap Penraat is in my pantheon of truly heroic people.
He forged papers for Nazi prisoners being sent as slave labor to the Atlantic Wall area of France during World War II. Through forging papers, he managed to smuggle over 400 people out of the Nazi occupations. In the middle of his operations, he was captured and tortured by Nazi interior guards. For two months he was forced to share a tiny cell with 4 other people, with only a bucket for their waste. They were forced to stand 20 hours a day, and were frequently beaten. He did not break, and when he was released, he went back to making papers. He was forced into hiding for several years near the end of the war. He got married, had 3 daughters, and became an architect. He was awarded the Israeli Medal of the Righteous Among Nations.
However, when asked why he took such risks, he said,
"You do these things because in your mind, there is no other way of doing it".
If you would like to visit his grave, and leave flowers, it's located in Catskill Cemetary in Catskill, New York.
Jaap Penraat is in my pantheon of truly heroic people.
He forged papers for Nazi prisoners being sent as slave labor to the Atlantic Wall area of France during World War II. Through forging papers, he managed to smuggle over 400 people out of the Nazi occupations. In the middle of his operations, he was captured and tortured by Nazi interior guards. For two months he was forced to share a tiny cell with 4 other people, with only a bucket for their waste. They were forced to stand 20 hours a day, and were frequently beaten. He did not break, and when he was released, he went back to making papers. He was forced into hiding for several years near the end of the war. He got married, had 3 daughters, and became an architect. He was awarded the Israeli Medal of the Righteous Among Nations.
However, when asked why he took such risks, he said,
"You do these things because in your mind, there is no other way of doing it".
If you would like to visit his grave, and leave flowers, it's located in Catskill Cemetary in Catskill, New York.