Marion Pritchard was riding her bicycle in Amsterdam in 1942 when she saw a group of soldiers raiding a Jewish children’s home. They were “picking up the kids by an arm or a leg or by the hair” and throwing them into a truck for deportation. Ms. Prichard reported that, “Two other women coming down on the street got so furious, they attacked the German soldiers, and they just picked the women up and threw them in the truck after the kids.”
“I just stood there. I’m one of those people who sat there and watched it happen.”
Except she didn’t. She went on to register Jewish infants as her own children and found safe homes for them. She got Jews ration cards, secured false IDs, and found medical care through a friendly pediatrician.
By her estimate, she helped to rescue about 150 Jews. She was also tough; at one point to save three kids she shot a Dutch collaborator to death and found a sympathetic undertaker to bury him in the same coffin as another body.
Ms. Pritchard received the Medal of Valor from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in May 2009.
On Christmas Eve, when millions of people are celebrating the birth of the Christ child, it is a good time to reflect how some children have been treated and are being treated at the present time, and how the world needs more Marion Pritchards.
Ms. Pritchard’s obituary appeared in today’s Times on page A17.
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