To Save a Life (2e-hands)

This book does not pretend to give a full account of the Dutch Resistance. It tells you some stories about the members of the Resistance in the area called 'the Utrecht chain of hills'.

After I had written two Dutch books on this subject, I was asked by some of my British friends to write something in English. In doing this I was very fortunate in obtaining the help of Jill Sutcliffe, who not only edited the book, but made me write about myself. She so skilfully kept asking for more details that I remembered things that I had long ago pushed away in my subconscious. I was used to writ¬ing local history which was quite different from writing a personal account. Jill instinctively knew what questions to ask to improve the story I had written. I am very grateful to her for making this book so much more readable than it would have been without her help.

However hard one tries it is never possible to reproduce in words exactly how life was lived in those days. The ever-present danger, tension and possibility of betrayal, cannot be expressed in words. One can only try to show some of the atmosphere of life at that time. In writing this book, I hope that my readers will understand something of the deeper motives that made people become members of the Resistance. Although there were many different reasons for joining, there was one common denominator: not being able to endure the restriction of freedom and the infringement of the integrity of our fellow men.

Elsa Caspers