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To Never Forget: A True WWII Story
When Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, twenty-one year old Dutchman Gys van Beek was offered multiple times to become a high-ranked official for the Nazis. But though the Dutch were promised riches and privileges beyond imagination, Gys refused. Instead, he secretly joined the Resistance, an underground organization resolved to defying Hitler’s regime. Working for the Resistance, Gys rescued several people from capture and death – yet perhaps the most prominent remains an American pilot named Howard Moebius, blasted from the sky in his P-51 Mustang on September 19, 1944. Now, Gys’s perspective of WWII combines with VALLEY OF THE SHADOW, Howard Moebius’s 1993 account of getting shot down in Holland in a small village named Angeren, where he was saved from the SS by a man his own age… Gys and Moebius’s poignant friendship that arose from the experience would prove to persevere across both distance and time.
254 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 20, 2016
While I was on vacation, one of my best friends ever handed me this book--one that her granddaughter (Mariah Montoya) put together for a high school project. I promised to read it, but didn't expect the depth and breadth I would find in it. And so I present it here and hope you will purchase it and share the same inspirational reading experience I did.
Gys van Beek was born and raised in Holland, and he lived there during the horrifying years of World War II. When the Germans occupied Holland, Gys was offered a chance to become an elite member of the SS--he made the perfect Aryan picture--tall, blond, and blue-eyed. He chose instead to become part of the underground. Danger and deprivation became his and his family's constant companions. His family went from well-fed and -housed farmers to dependent on the courage and generosity of neighbors.
One of the American pilots he helped save was Howard Moebius, whose story Gys relates from his perspective. And then we have Howard's point of view. Both inspiring!
I hope we never have to endure the things they did. Most of us wouldn't live through the week. But they did--and they ask us to always remember that horrible war and the reasons we fought. The tyranny, cruelty, oppression, slavery, genocide...these will be remembered, I promise, at least by me. You?
Available from Amazon and Barnes and Nobel.
I received this book free, but no one asked me to do anything but read it.
Gys van Beek was born and raised in Holland, and he lived there during the horrifying years of World War II. When the Germans occupied Holland, Gys was offered a chance to become an elite member of the SS--he made the perfect Aryan picture--tall, blond, and blue-eyed. He chose instead to become part of the underground. Danger and deprivation became his and his family's constant companions. His family went from well-fed and -housed farmers to dependent on the courage and generosity of neighbors.
One of the American pilots he helped save was Howard Moebius, whose story Gys relates from his perspective. And then we have Howard's point of view. Both inspiring!
I hope we never have to endure the things they did. Most of us wouldn't live through the week. But they did--and they ask us to always remember that horrible war and the reasons we fought. The tyranny, cruelty, oppression, slavery, genocide...these will be remembered, I promise, at least by me. You?
Available from Amazon and Barnes and Nobel.
I received this book free, but no one asked me to do anything but read it.
July 10, 2017
The van Beek name is familiar to us here in Canyon County, where many Dutch immigrants have settled, bringing their dairying expertise (and other talents) to Treasure Valley. So when a friend at my book club told me about this book and offered to loan it to me, I was immediately intrigued.
After WWII Gys van Beek eventually settled in Middleton, Idaho, and then Caldwell. He died in 2015.
In his early twenties when Holland was invaded and occupied by the Nazis, Gys shunned the offer to become a high ranking officer in the German army and, instead, chose to be active in the Holland Resistance, rescuing downed Allied pilots and helping hide them from the enemy. His experiences are told straightforwardly with no self-aggrandizement. There are many heroes and heroines in this story and van Beek gives you a picture of what life was like in the years of Nazi occupation.
One of the downed pilots he helped rescue, Howard Moebius, with whom he later connected in the United States, also recorded some memories of his capture. The two accounts are combined in this book.
A few years ago, having written down some of his memories, van Beek felt he needed a real "author" to help him get it all in publishable form. His request reached an Emmett High School English teacher, who proposed the idea to a graduating senior, Mariah Montoya. Mariah took it on as her Senior Project. I admit I was pleasantly surprised that such a young person had the professionalism, and sensitivity to handle this very special task. van Beek and Moebius were right: their stories should "never be forgotten."
After WWII Gys van Beek eventually settled in Middleton, Idaho, and then Caldwell. He died in 2015.
In his early twenties when Holland was invaded and occupied by the Nazis, Gys shunned the offer to become a high ranking officer in the German army and, instead, chose to be active in the Holland Resistance, rescuing downed Allied pilots and helping hide them from the enemy. His experiences are told straightforwardly with no self-aggrandizement. There are many heroes and heroines in this story and van Beek gives you a picture of what life was like in the years of Nazi occupation.
One of the downed pilots he helped rescue, Howard Moebius, with whom he later connected in the United States, also recorded some memories of his capture. The two accounts are combined in this book.
A few years ago, having written down some of his memories, van Beek felt he needed a real "author" to help him get it all in publishable form. His request reached an Emmett High School English teacher, who proposed the idea to a graduating senior, Mariah Montoya. Mariah took it on as her Senior Project. I admit I was pleasantly surprised that such a young person had the professionalism, and sensitivity to handle this very special task. van Beek and Moebius were right: their stories should "never be forgotten."
May 14, 2025
What an incredible autobiography and life this man lived as a Dutch resistance fighter. Story after story simply takes your breath away about how he survived and helped allies to survive.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews