Amazing Fireside

I went to an amazing fireside tonight. I took notes, and thought I'd post them in case someone was interested in reading them.

The fireside was by Kitty de Ruyter Bons. She told about surviving WWII in a concentration camp.

She wrote a book, and I found an interview with her on the internet:

http://www.nothingwavering.org/2010/06/08/20949-012-kitty-de-ruyter-bons.html


Kitty told about her Christian mother. They lived on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Her family owned a coffee plantation and had many servants. Each child had their own nany. They obtained a second home in the mountains where it was cooler, and converted rooms in their city home into school for the children of their servants.

Her nanny was Muslim and taught her many teachings. Her mother told her to change the name of Allah to Heavenly father and Mohammed for Jesus Christ, and to apply the teachings. She found many similarities between Christianity and Islam.

During WWII, the Japanese took over their Island. They were seeking the Dutch and other European races. Her Father escaped and started a resistance movement. In hiding, he sabotaged his own sugar factory, even though it jeopardized his livelihood. Soon, his family was placed under house arrest in an attempt to flush their father out. With house arrest, they surrounded the home with barbed wire. They boarded up doors and windows and they were only allowed to use a few rooms in their house. They were fortunate that one of the rooms had a secret door and passage to a bomb shelter that her mother was instructed in a dream to build. She was also instructed on what to stock it with. Only two trusted servants even knew that the room existed.
The Japanese rationed their food to starve them out. They were able to remain, being supplemented with the food in their bomb shelter.

After a while, the path to the market changed to where people passed through their property. The people passing by their one window would pass messages in the native language from their father. They would even pass through packages with food. Kitty said that they were fortunate to have three of the dumbest guards who never discovered the bomb shelter, nor the window pass through.

Anticipating the time when the Japanese would come to intern them, her mother put together backpacks from pillowcases for each of the kids. They were filled with clothes blankets and medicine. She was a licensed pharmacist and taught the kids what color of pills were for what. Dysentery, Vitamins, etc,…. Her mom had a black bag packed with medical supplies and two non-electric hair shavers.

The mom and younger children went to one concentration camp, and the two older brothers went to another. She never saw her brother Herbie again. In the haste of leaving, she forgot her favorite toy at home – a red doll. She was heartbroken. In the camp, they prayed each morning and night. One camp disallowed religious worship, but still woke up very early to pray in secret on the far end of the camp.

Her mother told stories about Jesus to the children while atrocities were being committed by the Japanese. She turned the children’s backs to it. Kitty’s favorite story to hear was Jesus feeding the 5,000. There were 5,800 starving people in the camp and she imagined Jesus coming to their camp and dividing bread and fishes to all of them. They were transported to Palestine as they heard the stories.

Hunger brought out the worst in people. Her mother told them not to judge the other people in the camp who were hungry and stole food. Only God knew their hearts.

Her mom acted as a spokeswoman in the camp. The guards asked to choose 30 girls between the age of 14 and 17 given as prostitutes for a Japanese holiday. She fasted and prayed on what to do. She had an idea to make the girls as ugly as she could. She used the hair shears from her black bag to shave all of their heads. Knowing plants, she found a plant in the compound that emitted a terrible odor when the leaves were rubbed. Three Roman Catholic nuns came forward and helped her. When the guards came for their girls, they were very angry at what they saw and took 6 ladies on a podium. They were ridiculed and beaten. Her mother was punished and tortured. Somehow they put a megaphone near her and she yelled into it and she testified of Christ and virtue. They tied her to a pole and cut a cross into her back. She was sentenced to 2 weeks in a pit that was not big enough to stand up in, nor lay down in. It was filthy and they would just throw food and water down there for the person to eat. Most died and the pit would become their grave.

Before they took her, she asked her children to pray for her, to keep her alive. She survived and emerged legs, face and eyes swollen and with maggots in her wounds. The women of the camp sacrificed their precious washing water to bathe her mother. God watched over her, and caused it to rain twice during the 2 weeks, in the dry season. The clean rain water dripped off the roof and landed in her cup. A breeze came each day in the heat of the day to cool her off. She was able to catch the food with her mouth as they dropped it down, wasting little of the food they dropped.

Kitty became angry at the guards, and lost control. She threw her water at the face of the officer who was dispensing food and spit at him. His honor disgraced, he drew his sword. Her mother intervened. She grabbed the sword with her bare hands and it cut her hands deeply. She cried for her daughter to apologize and make it right. She was paralyzed with fear and could not move, so her mother acted in her behalf. She was her mediator. Apologized on her daughter's name and bowed down low. He looked at her eyes intently and forgave her. He gave her water and a handkerchief to stop the blood. He thanked her for reminding him to be the respectable man he had come to war as.

They were transferred to different camps. One was near their house. Some people who were hired by the Japanese to dig graves knew them. They smuggled them oil, soy sauce (source of vitamin A) and soap. The supplies came from their bomb shelter. They had preserved the supplies, feeling that the family would need them.

It was her birthday. She didn’t see an end to her suffering. She decided to leave the camp. As she approached the fence, she heard someone call her by her pet name. She knew it was her nany. Saw her nanny on the other side of the fence in some bushes. She had walked for many days and waited many many days near the camp waiting to see her. Kitty begged her to take her with her. She told her that she couldn’t. She told her that it was not her fate to die in the camp. She had come to give her the red doll she left to keep her company in the camp. Kitty gave her a hug through the fence. She saw the guards coming and told her to run. Kitty tried to keep hugging her, not sensing the danger. When she let go, her nanny started running away. The guard shot her in the back. She turned to face Kitty and put her hands together and bowed to let her know it was ok before she died.

D-day finally came. Leaflets announcing the surrender of the Japanese were dropped from the air. The Japanese chose to stay to protect the camp from Indonesian gorilla troops attempting to commit genocide against Europeans in the camps. In spite of warnings, eight of her mother’s friends left camp without an escort. As soon as they left, there were screams and then their body parts thrown back over the fence.
The Americans finally arrived by air to liberate them. Her mom asked the kids to remember the scene of the American soldiers parachuting down to their deliverance. One soldier landed in a tree and was badly injured. The mother felt that she needed to help him. She handed her black bag for Kitty to carry and come with her. She was terrified from what had happened to the 8 women.
Before leaving the gates, her mother called out to the gorillas hiding in the trees that she was coming out to help the American Soldier. They came out of their hiding places and had their guns raised. She threatened them that if they harmed her, she would leave a curse on them that would follow their family for seven generations. They, being very superstitious allowed her to tend to the soldier. She put a tourniquet on both legs because both legs had been shot off. She asked him if she could pray for him. She prayed in English. His dog tags had the initials LDS on them. He was a Mormon boy from Texas. She didn’t know what that meant. Seeing how badly he was injured, he lamented that he wouldn’t be able to serve a mission. She told him that his work of liberation was the greatest mission he could serve. She held him as he was dying. He told her to find the LDS Church and to investigate it. As she recited the 23rd psalms he died in her arms.

She found out her husband was in the Netherlands. Waiting to join him, they lived in a garage, sleeping on the concrete floor. Her mom was a servant to a family who again rationed their food. Dutch Soldiers heard them singing hymns in the garage and asked to join them. The food there was too spicy so they brought food for her to cook almost every night and shared it with them.

They finally rejoined their father and sick brother. Their father’s foot had been cut off so that he wouldn't escape the camp. His fingernails had been pulled out and his jaw broken. He suffered a stroke 3 days before they arrived. He died shortly after. Her mom's pharmacy license was not valid in the Netherlands. She worked in a factory all day and cleaned offices at night. For the first time she saw her mother cry. They were going to be evicted because rent was raised.

She was distressed and cleaned her red doll. She brushed it too hard and it disintegrated, revealing treasure sewn in the doll. Rubies. Diamonds.

The jewels raised their circumstances and even paid for college educations of some of the children. Kitty met her husband at the university in Amsterdam.

Her husband suddenly died after 42 yrs of marriage. She remarried a man who had served in the military for 30 years, taught at West Point and was even a paratrooper. She moved from California to Centerville to marry him.

She had 2 Japanese exchange students stay at their house for just the night. They liked them so well, that they stayed the whole school year. Because of the unconditional love of the students, this helped her to heal.


John 16:33 “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer;I have overcome the World.”