I Was a Stranger

Every now and then I come across a book that I go on thinking about long after I have finished it and I know I will return again and again. One such book is I Was A Stranger (1977) by John Hackett. In September 1944 he was commander of the 4th Parachute Brigade and at the battle of Arnhem was badly wounded in the stomach. He was admitted to hospital as a POW, was almost given up for dead, and owed his life to a highly skilled surgeon, also a POW. Shortly afterwards, with the help of a young Dutch resistance worker he escaped and was nursed back to health in the home of the van Nooij family — three unmarried sisters and their niece and nephew – in the small town of Ede in the occupied Netherlands.

The risk was great: they lived only 50 yards from a Gestapo post. If Hackett had been discovered, they would probably have been shot and their house burned down. On more than one occasion it was a close call. They were a devout Christian family and lived out their faith in their care of Hackett, who shared their faith. Once he was sufficiently recovered the Dutch resistance smuggled him into Allied territory and that part of the book is a thrilling adventure story. But at the heart of it are the relationships that were forged in that little house in Ede and the love and deep admiration that Hackett felt for the people who became his second family. Once he was well enough he would join them downstairs in the evenings and he describes a scene which has stayed in my mind like a painting by a Dutch master. “The aunts (they were ‘Aunts’ to me now) were all occupied. Aunt Mien was sewing, Aunt Cor reading the Bible .. . Aunt Ann was translating the news into English for me. The atmosphere was one of peace and industry and contentment. It descended peacefully on the stranger and enfolded him.”

So well did he come to know them that when they all make a wish on New Year’s Eve he sees Aunt Mien looking at his shabby jacket and he guesses what she is wishing for. Two months after his escape the Allies liberate Ede and he ia able to return with gifts. He sees her looking at his uniform and smiling. She tells him her wish has come true and he says ‘I think I knew what it was … to see me back here soon in uniform with all that that would mean.’ I finished the book with tears in my eyes.

The family became life-long friends and we learn what happened to them in later life. Hackett himself became General Sir John Hackett, Commander-in-Chief of the Army on the Rhine. He was in his way as remarkable as the family who sheltered him. A career soldier, in later life he was a novelist and painter as well as the author of this profoundly moving memoir. I read it in the lovely little edition from Slightly Foxed pictured above. It was a comfort to read this in these dark days for the world.

The title is from Matthew 25:35, “I was a stranger and ye took me  in.’