3 Marion Pritchard
She shot a Nazi to save Jewish children
"Jews in hiding couldn't be visible," she explains with a hint of annoyance when asked her rationale. "They couldn't just go to the store. So I stayed with them. It was the right thing to do." The Polak family-- Fred and his children, 4-year-old Lex, 2-year-old Tom, and newborn Erica--stayed with her until the war ended in 1945. (The mother was separated from the family but reunited with them after the war.) There was nowhere to hide other than a tiny compartment under the living room, so Fred spent each day upstairs in a nurse's house across the street and worked on his doctoral dissertation. The children, who passed for gentiles, could play in the yard. Though many of the neighbors knew what she was doing, they were "good Dutchmen, anti-Nazi, and rescuers in their own way," Pritchard says. They sneaked her milk and vegetables to supplement her meager rations. Pritchard struggled to keep house while finding havens for other Jews.
By the time the war ended, the Nazis had murdered approximately 110,000 of the Netherlands' 140,000 Jews. Pritchard had helped find hiding places or transport to safe houses for more than 150. "I tried," she says, "but many were only saved temporarily."
Pritchard was an exemplary rescuer because she chose to risk her life when she saw Jewish children being hauled away, says Malka Drucker, who coauthored Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust. "She was frozen in fear and indecision, so she decided to become a rescuer."
For all her bravery, Pritchard is haunted by that night she shot the policeman. She was fortunate local authorities did not pursue the missing man--hatred for Nazis and Dutch turncoats seethed in the village. And she was extremely lucky that friends and supporters disposed of the body. Karel Poons, a gay Jew who was her former ballet teacher, risked his life to sneak out after curfew and persuade the baker to take the body in his horse-drawn cart to the undertaker, who stashed it in an occupied coffin slated for burial. Still, Pritchard feared being found out. "I had to go on, to stay strong for the family," she says. "I wish it hadn't been necessary. But it was the better of two evils."
Born: Nov. 7, 1920.
Personal: Widowed, three children.
Favorite book: Children First by Penelope Leach.
Favorite movie: Life Is Beautiful.
Biggest regret: That I wasn't able to do more than I did during World War II.
Greatest accomplishment: Raising three children.
Marion Pritchard: My Hero
"Most politicians do a lot of compromising, but Sen. Jim Jeffords does what he thinks is right. He hasn't changed his philosophy [or] principles; the Republican Party just didn't keep up with him. How many people have a conscience and follow it even in the face of the repercussions? "
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