01c. 1969 ADThe worst is, I remain so stone cold. Does this war make you an 'alive-dead person'? Is it not possible to remain yourself in this chaos? How long still?Diet Eman / quote ↗
02c. 1969 ADThe greatest miracle was that in the end I could actually feel pity for those men because they were so deluded: they thought they had power and really they had nothing. I will never forget it. And from that moment on I've never really hated anymore. It all turned around when I sat there thinking what poor empty souls they were.Diet Eman / quote ↗
03c. 1969 ADThere I was out in the barn playing midwife to a pregnant mare. I remember sitting there, spinning yarn in the light of a little oil lamp, a city girl who knew nothing about farming, sitting on the deel beside that mother in pain, already beginning the birthing process. All around me there was darkness and perfect silence, except for the mother's pain. It was as if the war didn't exist in those hours.Diet Eman / quote ↗
04c. 1969 AD(regarding what kind of day she would want to be released) If I had the opportunity to choose, I would want it to be a radiant sunshiny day! And I would love it to be a Saturday morning. I'd go home and take a bath and soak and shampoo and put on clean underwear and clean clothes! And then Sunday morning I want to go to church and thank Gd for freedom -- with capital letters.Diet Eman / quote ↗
05c. 1969 ADBeing exhausted, yet keeping up the pursuit.' (Judges 8:4) Even after what I had said of wanting out, even after that humiliation, the physical exhaustion, the deep despair I felt, those words were my new marching orders. The next morning, I swung my rucksack over my shoulders and was off again.Diet Eman / quote ↗
06c. 1969 ADLife is like a film screen: pictures come, make an impression, go, and then make a place for new pictures with new impressions which obscure the previous ones. Some of those old pictures fade, but the impressions they leave will never pass away. Such an impression is the image of Hein Sietsma -- a joyful Christian who loved life so much but was still willing to give it to the great, good, and holy cause.Diet Eman / quote ↗
07c. 1969 ADDarling, if I think of all I miss now, I will go crazy. I should not think of that. I only want to think of all that I still have, and then I am rich. Your spirit is always around me, in your diary, our letters, all the things you got for our household. How proud we were of that! And the nearly six years! O God, I thank you for those years. If I never had met you, I would now not have all the sorrow; but I would have missed these riches -- and do these years not abundantly balance the lonely years I face without you?Diet Eman / quote ↗
08c. 1969 ADThat was one other time when my whole body reacted to the fear and went out of my own control. My nerves came apart completely, and I started vomiting and vomiting. I couldn't stop. It had been such a narrow escape. I kept telling myself that I could take all of the pressure; but there were those times that my body seemed almost to shut itself down, to scream that what was happening was just too much.Diet Eman / quote ↗
09c. 1969 ADIt was always exciting, but it was also always dangerous. And fear takes a toll finally: when you live in danger from moment to moment, the constant tension becomes very wearying. Every step I took on the roads of Gelderland was nerve-wracking, because I was secretly carrying the very material that could turn out to be my own death warrant.Diet Eman / quote ↗
10c. 1969 ADThe sound of natural things was wonderful to us. In the middle of all the suffering, it seemed pure, untouched.Diet Eman / quote ↗
11c. 1969 ADAnd here we see again that we do not decide our own lives. Dieneke, even if we won't see each other again on earth, we will never be sorry for what we did, that we took this stand.Diet Eman / quote ↗
