Arie van Mansum

Arie van Mansum was Dutch and born in 1920 as the son of a railway worker. He grew up in Maastricht, Holland where he was an active person in the Reformed Church of the Netherlands. He represented his church at a meeting at the City Hall to decide how to help the refugees coming in from Germany. His church then asked him to deliver an underground newspaper called "Free Netherlands" during his business trips as a traveling salesman for a wall paper company.

Also, later in his life, an elder in his church asked him to escort Jewish families to hiding places where they would be safe during war time. He also found a hiding place for the Freilichs family. One of the sons, Fritz, looked Jewish; Arie hid him with his own parents. Through the Freilichs, Arie helped hide many more people. He also helped collect ration cards and food stamps from food stamp offices and police departments so that the families hiding Jewish people could get food.

In 1942, he helped a group of Dutch students who were smuggling away small Jewish children from a Jewish nursery when they went to see their parents who were across the street at a theater. At a different time, Arie and his girlfriend picked up an eleven day old Jewish baby and brought the baby to its Jewish mother in hiding so the baby would be safe. All of this time, he was still living at home with his parents and sister, Margarita. They were helping him with this underground work.

Soon, he was so busy with his rescue work, he left his job to do this full time. In October 1943, he was arrested and put in solitary confinement in Haeren for six months. After those six months, he was sent to the Aremsfoort concentration camp until September of 1944.

While he was in prison, his sister took care of all the resistance work he was doing. He was released from prison when the area of Utrecht was liberated by the Allies. His home town was still occupied, so he remained in Utrecht. He stayed with this aunt and resumed his resistance work. He was arrested a second time in 1945 because he was caught delivering "Free Netherlands". He remained in prison until Holland was liberated by the allies.

After the war, he moved to Canada and was disappointed to see collaborators rise into powerful positions in the new Dutch government. Arie van Mansum kept in touch with the many Jewish people he saved and was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous among Nations in 1970.

I think that Arie was called to the situation and didn't have much time to think about it. I also think he was courageous, but not in the sense that most people have in their heads. He did not try to openly save people, but when asked, he did many people and helped relocate them. I think that this kind of courage is the best kind. As a child of the twenty first century, I think that more people should follow Arie van Mansum's example of not openly trying to be courageous, but quietly helping those in need. Another action of his we should follow is not telling anyone or bragging to anyone about your work. If no one bragged, the world would be a better place. If no one bragged about their rights to people who did not have good rights, or bragged about items that they have that other people don't have, perhaps everyone would not become envious and try and obtain that right or item. In some situations this is good. An example of a good situation is the Civil Rights Movement. Other times, trying to obtain what other people have, is bad because people become too greedy.

Resources:
Title Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust
Date 1940
Annotation van Mansum was arrested two times
Author(s) Gay Block and Malka Drucker

Title Wikipedia.com
Annotation While he was in prison, his sister took care of all the resistance work

Title
http://motlc.learningcenter.wiesenthal.org/albums/palbum/p42/a2109p1.html
Date 1997
Annotation Arie hid Fritz with his parents
Author(s) The Simon Wiesenthal Center