
Behind the Fireplace
Memoirs of a Girl Working in the Dutch Resistance
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Esther Wane
About this listen
As World War II progressed, the Okma family took six Jewish refugees into their house, hiding them in a secret room behind their fireplace. The youngest daughter, Kieks, joined the Resistance, delivering illegal newspapers, guiding British parachutists around The Hague and preparing safe houses for Special Forces who were dropped in from England.
As the war continued, she fell in love with a Resistance commander, and worked with him to rescue wounded colleagues, steal weapons from German arms dumps, and move weapons around the country. They had a tumultuous parting and she continued her work, acting as a courier with a two hundred km bike ride to the north of Holland. When she returned home, she appreciated how much the war had changed her and her boyfriend, and prepared to try a reconciliation.
She escaped a firing squad four times, and survived the war, mentally scarred by her experiences. She sought help, but the help she was offered came in a poisoned chalice, and she kept her secret to herself for almost 50 years. Her family in Holland was recognized by Yad Vashem, the Israeli organization that records those who saved Jews from the Holocaust, and she was awarded a pension for her work in the Resistance by the Dutch foundation Stichting 1940-1945.
©1992 Andrew Scott and Grietje Scott (P)2020 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Sisters of Auschwitz
- The True Story of Two Jewish Sisters’ Resistance in the Heart of Nazi Territory
- By: Roxane van Iperen
- Narrated by: Susan Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable story of two unsung heroes of World War II: sisters Janny and Lien Brilleslijper who joined the Dutch Resistance, helped save dozen of lives, were captured by the Nazis, and ultimately survived the Holocaust.
-
-
A Miss
- By FritzFamily on 10-06-21
-
On the Run in Nazi Berlin
- A Memoir
- By: Bert Lewyn, Bev Saltzman Lewyn - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1942. The Gestapo arrest 18-year-old Bert Lewyn and his parents, sending the latter to their deaths and Bert to work in a factory making guns for the Nazi war effort. Miraculously tipped off the morning the Gestapo round up all the Jews who work in the factories, Bert goes underground. He finds shelter sometimes with compassionate civilians, sometimes with people who find his skills useful and sometimes in the cellars of bombed-out buildings.
-
-
NOT YOUR USUAL STORY ABOUT THE NAZIS...FANTASTIC!
- By Steve on 03-21-19
By: Bert Lewyn, and others
-
The Warsaw Orphan
- By: Kelly Rimmer
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson, Charlie Thurston
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1942, young Elzbieta Rabinek is aware of the swiftly growing discord just beyond the courtyard of her comfortable Warsaw home. She has no fondness for the Germans who patrol her streets and impose their curfews, but has never given much thought to what goes on behind the walls that contain her Jewish neighbors. She knows all too well about German brutality - and that it's the reason she must conceal her true identity. But in befriending Sara, Elzbieta makes a discovery that propels her into a dangerous world of deception and heroism.
-
-
Kelly did it again! 🥰
- By Eric Cardoza on 07-21-21
By: Kelly Rimmer
-
Three Ordinary Girls
- The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins and WWII Heroes
- By: Tim Brady
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it's entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad.
-
-
Communist fan fiction
- By Rodney on 03-12-23
By: Tim Brady
-
Paper Bullets
- Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis
- By: Jeffrey H. Jackson
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paper Bullets is the first book to tell the history of an audacious anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by an unlikely pair: two French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, who drew on their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute “paper bullets”—wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive fictional dialogues designed to demoralize Nazi troops occupying their adopted home on the British Channel Island of Jersey.
-
-
Outstanding, amazing history
- By Dan P on 03-24-24
-
A Light in the Window
- A Completely Gripping WW2 Historical Novel with a Heartbreaking Twist
- By: Marion Kummerow
- Narrated by: Stephanie Cannon
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1941: Margarete Rosenbaum is working as a housemaid for a senior Nazi officer when his house is bombed, leaving her the only survivor. But when she’s mistaken for his daughter in the aftermath of the blast, Margarete knows she can make a bid for freedom.... Issued with temporary papers - and with the freedom of not being seen as Jewish - a few hours are all she needs to escape to relative safety. That is, until her former employer’s son, SS officer Wilhelm Huber, tracks her down.
-
-
Wonderful Story!
- By Melinda on 05-16-22
By: Marion Kummerow
-
The Sisters of Auschwitz
- The True Story of Two Jewish Sisters’ Resistance in the Heart of Nazi Territory
- By: Roxane van Iperen
- Narrated by: Susan Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unforgettable story of two unsung heroes of World War II: sisters Janny and Lien Brilleslijper who joined the Dutch Resistance, helped save dozen of lives, were captured by the Nazis, and ultimately survived the Holocaust.
-
-
A Miss
- By FritzFamily on 10-06-21
-
On the Run in Nazi Berlin
- A Memoir
- By: Bert Lewyn, Bev Saltzman Lewyn - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1942. The Gestapo arrest 18-year-old Bert Lewyn and his parents, sending the latter to their deaths and Bert to work in a factory making guns for the Nazi war effort. Miraculously tipped off the morning the Gestapo round up all the Jews who work in the factories, Bert goes underground. He finds shelter sometimes with compassionate civilians, sometimes with people who find his skills useful and sometimes in the cellars of bombed-out buildings.
-
-
NOT YOUR USUAL STORY ABOUT THE NAZIS...FANTASTIC!
- By Steve on 03-21-19
By: Bert Lewyn, and others
-
The Warsaw Orphan
- By: Kelly Rimmer
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson, Charlie Thurston
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1942, young Elzbieta Rabinek is aware of the swiftly growing discord just beyond the courtyard of her comfortable Warsaw home. She has no fondness for the Germans who patrol her streets and impose their curfews, but has never given much thought to what goes on behind the walls that contain her Jewish neighbors. She knows all too well about German brutality - and that it's the reason she must conceal her true identity. But in befriending Sara, Elzbieta makes a discovery that propels her into a dangerous world of deception and heroism.
-
-
Kelly did it again! 🥰
- By Eric Cardoza on 07-21-21
By: Kelly Rimmer
-
Three Ordinary Girls
- The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins and WWII Heroes
- By: Tim Brady
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it's entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad.
-
-
Communist fan fiction
- By Rodney on 03-12-23
By: Tim Brady
-
Paper Bullets
- Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis
- By: Jeffrey H. Jackson
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paper Bullets is the first book to tell the history of an audacious anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by an unlikely pair: two French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, who drew on their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute “paper bullets”—wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive fictional dialogues designed to demoralize Nazi troops occupying their adopted home on the British Channel Island of Jersey.
-
-
Outstanding, amazing history
- By Dan P on 03-24-24
-
A Light in the Window
- A Completely Gripping WW2 Historical Novel with a Heartbreaking Twist
- By: Marion Kummerow
- Narrated by: Stephanie Cannon
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1941: Margarete Rosenbaum is working as a housemaid for a senior Nazi officer when his house is bombed, leaving her the only survivor. But when she’s mistaken for his daughter in the aftermath of the blast, Margarete knows she can make a bid for freedom.... Issued with temporary papers - and with the freedom of not being seen as Jewish - a few hours are all she needs to escape to relative safety. That is, until her former employer’s son, SS officer Wilhelm Huber, tracks her down.
-
-
Wonderful Story!
- By Melinda on 05-16-22
By: Marion Kummerow
-
Say Nothing
- A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
- By: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Narrated by: Matthew Blaney
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.
-
-
On a par with I'll Be Gone in the Dark, plus...
- By Grace O'Malley on 03-01-19
-
The School That Escaped the Nazis
- The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler
- By: Deborah Cadbury
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1931, Anna Essinger had read Mein Kampf and knew that Hitler’s world view was violent, utterly destructive, and that many of her pupils in her small progressive school in Herrlingen, Germany were in terrible danger. She decided that in order to offer them a refuge, and a future, she must first move her school entirely out of the Nazis’ reach. So, she did just that, creating a safe haven in Kent, England.
-
-
Thank you
- By Jennifer Baratta She/Her on 03-11-25
By: Deborah Cadbury
-
The Escape Artist
- The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
- By: Jonathan Freedland
- Narrated by: Jonathan Freedland
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz and make his way to freedom—among only a tiny handful who ever pulled off that near-impossible feat. He did it to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world—and to warn the last Jews of Europe what fate awaited them. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly missed German bullets until they had smuggled out the first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen.
-
-
Good
- By Matt on 11-10-22
-
Always Remember Your Name
- A True Story of Family and Survival in Auschwitz
- By: Andra Bucci, Tatiana Bucci
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On March 28, 1944, six-year-old Tati and her four-year-old sister, Andra, were roused from their sleep and arrested. Along with their mother, Mira, their aunt, and cousin Sergio, they were deported to Auschwitz. Over 230,000 children were deported to the camp, where Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, performed deadly experiments on them. Only a few dozen children survived, Tati and Andra among them.
-
-
Important read!
- By Holly Thomas on 02-24-22
By: Andra Bucci, and others
-
Sabina
- In the Eye of the Storm
- By: Bella Kuligowska Zucker
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the memoir written by Bella Kuligowska Zucker, the only person in her family to survive the Holocaust. In September 1939, Bella was a carefree teenager living in Poland when the German army struck. She was rounded up with her friends and family and sent to a series of grim Jewish ghettos. After loved ones were separated and lost through the war years, Bella survived by changing her identity. After finding the birth certificate of a Catholic girl five years her senior, she became Sabina Mazurek. Then she went into the eye of the storm, Germany.
-
-
Alone without family
- By Nancy F. on 04-17-25
-
Nazis Knew My Name
- A Remarkable Story of Survival and Courage in Auschwitz
- By: Magda Hellinger, Maya Lee, David Brewster
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Zoe Carides
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In March 1942, 25-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger and nearly a thousand other young women were deported as some of the first Jews to be sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The SS soon discovered that by putting prisoners in charge of the day-to-day accommodation blocks, they could deflect attention away from themselves. Magda was one such prisoner selected for leadership and put in charge of hundreds of women in the notorious Experimental Block 10. She found herself constantly walking a dangerously fine line: saving lives while avoiding suspicion by the SS.
-
-
Extraordinary courage.
- By Alice@Wonderland on 10-01-24
By: Magda Hellinger, and others
-
The Chief Witness
- Escape from China's Modern-Day Concentration Camps
- By: Sayragul Sauytbay, Alexandra Cavelius
- Narrated by: Xifeng Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in China’s northwestern province, Sayragul Sauytbay trained as a doctor before being appointed a senior civil servant. But her life was upended when the Chinese authorities incarcerated her. Her crime? Being Kazakh, one of China’s ethnic minorities. The northwestern province borders the largest number of foreign nations and is the point in China that is the closest to Europe. In recent years, it has become home to more than 1,200 penal camps - modern-day gulags that are estimated to house three million members of the Kazakh and Uyghur minorities.
-
-
A Must Read!
- By Stephanie on 12-22-21
By: Sayragul Sauytbay, and others
-
My Friend Anne Frank
- The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds
- By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, Dina Kraft
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever.
-
-
the missing piece to Anne’s story and the complete picture of Hannah’s
- By Wilson on 07-13-23
By: Hannah Pick-Goslar, and others
-
Forty Autumns
- A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall
- By: Nina Willner
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this illuminating and deeply moving memoir, a former American military intelligence officer goes beyond traditional Cold War espionage tales to tell the true story of her family - of five women separated by the Iron Curtain for more than 40 years and their miraculous reunion after the fall of the Berlin Wall. A personal look at a tenuous era that divided a city and a nation and continues to haunt us, Forty Autumns is an intimate and beautifully written story of courage, resilience, and love.
-
-
Excellent look into the divided Germanys
- By Mary Aalgaard on 01-18-18
By: Nina Willner
-
Eva's Story
- A Survivor's Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank
- By: Eva Schloss, Evelyn Julia Kent
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many know the tragic story of Anne Frank, the teen whose life ended at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. But most people don’t know about Eva Schloss, Anne’s playmate and stepsister. Though Eva, like Anne, was taken to Auschwitz at the age of 15, her story did not end there. This incredible memoir recounts - without bitterness or hatred - the horrors of war, the love between mother and daughter, and the strength and determination that helped a family overcome danger and tragedy.
-
-
Amazing Story! Listen to this audiobook.
- By Jesus on 05-29-18
By: Eva Schloss, and others
-
The Good Assassin
- How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia
- By: Stephan Talty
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The untold story of an Israeli spy’s epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice - a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.
-
-
Wonderful: A complete history wrapped in a story
- By Aaron on 04-22-20
By: Stephan Talty
-
The Art of Resistance
- My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
- By: Justus Rosenberg
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, 16-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south.
-
-
Rosenberg, Please focus
- By Jess on 03-20-22
By: Justus Rosenberg
What listeners say about Behind the Fireplace
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- wendy.fleming
- 04-08-24
Truth of Difficult Situation
The story is unique in many ways, but I don't want to give much away. I had surprises regarding the aftermath of the war, honesty in the day to day tension of hiding people, the extreme starvation, though I knew of all of these.
It is interesting, too, that the story is not told in first person. I think it helped advance the more mundane, and truth, of existing in occupied Europe at the time.
I would love to hear this same story in her mother's voice: the gripping accounts of danger at every turn, how she managed the fear, the relationships, shame, exhaustion, starvation, love and loss. I realize there would be some license, but a fascinating juxtaposition to this account.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Roy Cohen
- 01-19-22
Brave heroes and heroins, in The Hague NL
Verry important price of history.
Not much is known about resistance in the Hague and not much about hiding Jews in the Hague.
This story is an important marker in the history of the Hague and ww2 in the Netherlands.
My thanks to family Okma for there sacrifice during the dark years of ww2.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- BarbieAlaska
- 02-21-23
thank you for writing this book
I have read WW2 books all my life. The healing and trauma of living through these horrors is vivid in this book. I am moved to tears for the way main character was treated after the war. I know from my readings this is how many peoples efforts were denied. In light of current world events..I can honestly say... here we go again. Read and learn so you are wiser.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!