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Frieda Roos Van-Hessen
"Life in
The Shadow of The Swastika"
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Get Frieda's Book! |
I was born and raised in Amsterdam, Holland, of Jewish
parents. They never talked about God, and I had never been in a synagogue
except for my brother’s wedding. For me, Yom Kippur meant a day off from
school, and the only Jewish events that took place in our home were the
Bar-Mitzvahs of my two brothers! Still, we considered ourselves very Jewish.
In my teenage years I had a Gentile boyfriend, and since my parents had
forbidden me from seeing him because he was a Gentile, we often sneaked into
a local Catholic church to be together. |
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I was always impressed by the paintings there of the crucifixion and
moved by the sadness expressed in the face of Jesus, as the artist perceived the
magnitude of that event. But the times were soon to change, and I would become a
fugitive, running for my very life. |
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From Singer to Survivor
The Lord blessed me with a soprano singing voice, and after studying at the
Amsterdam Conservatory, I embarked on a career that led me to sing the Dutch
version of Disney’s Snow White. From there my work included: the Grand
Diploma in the Geneva, Switzerland World Contest; the role of the Forestbird
in Wagner’s Siegfried with the Bayreuth Festspiel Haus;
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Opera singer
Frieda Van Hessen
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a Command performance
of Verdi’s Requiem for the Queen of Holland; many live broadcasts and concert
performances; and oratorios like Handel’s “The Messiah” and the many beautiful
Christian cantatas by Bach. But, when the Second World War began, my singing
career ended abruptly. I was immediately disqualified from any and all regular
concert performances because I was Jewish. The newspaper reviews read, “this
soloist is not worth reviewing, after all the suffering brought upon us by the
Jews.” The Germans did allow a temporary Jewish theater, so I became involved in
performing with famous German Jewish refugee artists for the Jewish population.
Meanwhile, the Nazis brought to another theater on the next block, Jews that
they had rounded up for deportations to the infamous concentration camps.
Because of my involvement with the Jewish Council, which sponsored our work in
the theater, we were allowed to minister to the thousands of deportees and were
guaranteed we would be the last ones to go. The ‘deportation theater’ had become
a madhouse of anguish and filth, housing up to 9,000 people in a place built to
seat 1,000. Sick people, old and young, crying children, were huddled together
in fear of death, sleeping on louse-infested mattresses all over the floor.
There were only two toilet facilities. I contracted lice and scabies all over my
body, so much so, that when an opportunity did present itself for me to go into
hiding, I could not because of my condition.
While at the theater I became good friends with Mieke*. Her husband had been
arrested by the Gestapo, and we decided that I would stay in her house and help
with her two small children. My former boyfriend, unbeknownst to me, had become
a Gestapo agent out of anger against my parents.
Not only did he try to destroy the Jewish people, but he sent the stormtroopers
after me at Mieke’s place.
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Frieda's father, was at one time a
successful businessman in Holland. He, Frieda's mother, and brother
died in Auschwitz.
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They came at night, fired shots
through the house, but failed to find us: we hid in a heavy steel
dumbwaiter. The stormtroopers left, planning to return in the morning. This
gave us a couple of hours to escape over the roofs of our four story house
and neighboring buildings, fleeing for our lives in the dark of night. |
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Four Long Years, Day to Day
Thus we entered an unknown world of hiding and escape, fear and agony. For
the next four years I lost all I had, my entire family, home and belongings,
and had to run from death and destruction, never knowing what the next day
would bring, whether I would live or die. We hid out in many places, towns
and cities, and each time our arrest seemed inevitable God seemed to put a
hedge of angels around us. The longest time in one hideout was 212 days in
one room: never going out except by crawling over the ground in the dark to
be with my parents. They were hiding in the next house until they were
betrayed by the woman who was hiding us--for 25 guilders each. That was the
price the Nazis paid for information about Jews in hiding or Anti-Germans
listening to English radio broadcasts about the progress of the Allied
forces. Alas, nothing had changed since Judas Iscariot! I saw my dear
parents rounded up and taken away with bayonets at their backs. They and my
lovely younger brother, Eddie, who was betrayed some time later, were all
murdered in concentration camps. The only thing Eddie had taken with him was
his violin, which he played professionally. He was forced to play it while
our people were being tormented and gassed. After the war I met a doctor who
had survived, and told me about how the Germans kept Eddie without any
medication as he suffered from typhoid and got to the point where his body
could no longer cope with starvation. May God help them! It takes the love
of Jesus to enable us to overcome and to want to forgive; to say “Father
forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
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Precious, but painful memories
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We forgive, He heals the wounds, but
the scars remain. Space doesn’t afford here for all that happened. But I can
say that our God was in complete control and saw me through.
Even when I was held
prisoner, having been arrested with a bayonet in my own back, God was there. |
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He freed me
right out of the “lion’s den,” forcing them to let me go in a most
miraculous way!
From Darkness to Light!
When it seemed to us that our trials would never finish, finally the war
came to an end. Suddenly, it seemed from all different directions people
began to talk to me about Jesus. Then, I contacted a pastor who sent,
believe it or not, a German lady to me. God does have a way with things! She
had married an Orthodox Jewish man, become a Jewess, and lived a Jewish life
for some 33 years. Her husband died suddenly leaving her brokenhearted and
grieving much, but eventually she had found Jesus as her Messiah. For the
next six weeks I argued with her about this Jesus, until she asked me to
read Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22. Reading Isaiah 53, I did not understand a
single word. Then, as promised, I started reading Psalm 22, and coming to
the 16th verse where it says “they pierced my hands and my feet”, I let out
one big yell, “Oh my God, that is Jesus, because He was crucified!” I
remembered all the Christian paintings I had seen years earlier in that
church in Amsterdam, and suddenly all of it made sense. I went back to the
53rd chapter of Isaiah and now I understood each and every word. Hallelujah!
The ‘scales fell off my eyes’ instantly, and the first thing I said was
“it’s like coming out of a dark hole into the light.” Though I did not know
it at that point, I found out later that Jesus is called “The Light of the
World.” As I read the Tanakh (Old Testament) all alone in a room, Yeshua
revealed Himself to me: then and there I was born again. After reading the
Gospels I understood even more. Since those earlier days, God has not only
furthered my concert career in the “New World,” but He has enabled me to
become a living testimony for Yeshua ha Mashiach (Jesus the Messiah) as my
personal Savior. Now, many years later, having been in Israel visiting the
places where Yeshua walked and preached, the Word has become even more dear
to me. Now it is no longer a dream, but my eyes have seen where He was, and
how each day He is always near to us. Amen.
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Frieda 'On the air'!
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God has called Frieda into different ministries, such
as volunteering in a maximum security prison work for twenty years as a
counselor, and music director during church services in the prisons. She has conducted her own chapel services for years in one of the major
nursing homes in Charlotte, North Carolina. Today she continues to serve the
Lord, counseling and giving her personal testimony in the United States and
abroad. Recently her story
appeared on THE 700 CLUB!
Frieda's website! |
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*All family names are
authentic; some other ones have been changed. |
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Jewish Believers
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