There’s no question that being active in the resistance to the Nazis and their collaborators took courage, firm principles and a quick wit. What, exactly, those looked like differed from one individual to the next.

Even courage plays out differently for each person, and not just because each person needed to draw on their courage in unique circumstances.  For example, a young Engelandvaarder associated with Dutch-Paris was arrested by German officers and put into a car heading to Gestapo HQ. He found the courage to open the car door, roll out onto the pavement and take off running.  Most probably, adrenaline and the certain knowledge that the Gestapo would not treat him gently gave him sufficient motivation.

That took guts, for sure. But it’s different from the sort of cold-blooded courage that a woman showed in opening her home to strangers for an indefinite period of time. That woman was literally putting her life in the hands of strangers without any compelling reason outside of her own moral code.  Many times, it went fine and no one was harmed, indeed someone was saved.

But not always.   Take the story of a woman we’ll call Madeleine. She was a middle aged nurse who had her own apartment in Paris. In July 1943, someone denounced her by anonymous letter, accusing her of “anti-government sentiment”.  The French police investigated but uncovered no political activity.  She was not part of Dutch-Paris at that time.

A leader of Dutch-Paris recruited her in early March 1944, asking her to find other new recruits for the line. He also asked her to lodge an Engelandvaarder for a week. The man was an officer in the Dutch air force and should have been reliable or at least discreet. He was neither.  Indeed he acted as if his clandestine trip to Spain was a holiday excursion and an opportunity to visit acquaintances and do some sight-seeing. Not surprisingly, he drew the attention of the German authorities, who banged on the door of Madeleine’s apartment very early one day in late March 1944.

Madeleine and her irresponsible guest were both arrested. She was questioned, imprisoned and deported to the concentration camp at Ravensbrück in July 1944. Like other Dutch-Paris women she was extracted from Ravensbrück by the Swedish White Busses and returned to Paris in June 1945. She worked with Dutch-Paris for less than a month but spent over a year as a political prisoner of the Nazis because of the disgraceful behavior of a man she was trying to help.

Out of the approximately 3,000 fugitives whom Dutch-Paris helped, that officer was the only one who is known to have caused the arrest of those trying to help him.