Big Stories in Two Little Sentences
I will not forget that it was September, 1914, the Marne; and she was working with her usual fury at a first aid station only 250 meters behind d’Esperey’s Fifth Army line.
I was there 30 seconds after the shell hit, and even 60 years later, I can close my eyes and see her beautiful, dead face.
No I didn’t know her well… no one did actually, but I know she was 23 when she died.
It was Amsterdam in 1944, and she was still running her Jew-hiding network… even a few gypsies… when the Gestapo got her, raped her a few times and hung her from a meat hook with piano wire.