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‘Every person is made in God’s image,’ grandfather stressed to him
Ray Pennings with the copper kettle gifted to his family by grateful Jews they helped during the Holocaust.
Susan Korah
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OSV News photo/CPP
Like many Christians, Ray Pennings dreams of visiting the Holy Land some day.
When he does, the co-founder and executive director of Cardus, a Canadian non-partisan think-tank dedicated to finding ways Canadians can work together for the common good, will find some names engraved on the Wall of Honour in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem.
These names will fill him with pride, and also remind him of a story that will hopefully serve as an inspiration and an example to those grappling with the rising tide of anti-Semitism that has followed the Israel-Hamas war that began Oct. 7, 2023 that only recently paused due to the latest ceasefire.
The names are those of his paternal and maternal grandparents and their children. The inscription is a special honour, awarded to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews fleeing the terror of the Nazi campaign of genocide.
The names on the wall are like a roll call of heroes, the moral equivalent of the best players inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Pennings will see the names of his Dutch grandparents, who like other Christian heroes of the Holocaust helped Jewish families as they desperately tried to avert the fate of millions of their compatriots when the Nazis hunted them to send them by trainloads to horrific deaths in the notorious gas chambers.
As the world prepares to observe the 20th anniversary of the UN-designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Pennings shared his recollections of the family story with The Catholic Register.
“My grandfather died when I was eight and there are only two conversations on this topic that I’ve had with him that I can recall,” he said.
“The family members directly involved, including uncles and aunts, were mostly reluctant to talk about it, so what I have are fragments of a story,” he said, explaining that such reticence was necessary for security reasons because the Nazis would have punished anyone caught helping Jews.
Nevertheless, Pennings, a third-generation Canadian born in St. Thomas, Ont., is fluent in Dutch, so together with memories of conversations with his grandfather, a Dutch book he was able to read and a copper kettle gifted to his family by a grateful Jewish family, he was able to piece together the story.
The copper kettle occupies pride of place in his office today, among his vast collection of books arranged on shelves that line the walls.
Like many Dutch families, his grandparents, who had been prosperous farmers in The Netherlands, emigrated to Canada after the devastation of the Second World War and were able to rebuild their lives.
He recalled two conversations with his grandfather before he died. Pennings explained his grandfather was moved to help Jews because of his Christian faith and because he was outraged by what was being done to them.
“It was a Sunday evening and I was eight years old. I was vising my Oma and Opa, and was helping my grandfather plant trees,” he said, adding that his grandfather, an elder in the Dutch Reformed Church, told him he helped Jews “because every person is made in God’s image. But my grandfather also said: ‘It’s important to believe in Jesus.’ ”
Pennings remembers reading a Dutch book to his father before he died. The book had a picture of a chicken coop with a trap door which helped his uncle hide Jewish families. His uncle had a coded message to his household to warn them of danger. When he saw any Nazis in the neighbourhood, he would go and collect eggs in a basket, which would cause the hens to raise a ruckus, warning the Jewish guests to hide themselves and others to be on alert.
The Pennings family’s story of heroism and of risking their own lives to help people who did not share their faith is confirmed by narratives published in the Yad Vashem database.
Asked about the climate of anti-Semitism that Jewish communities in Canada and around the world are facing today in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, Pennings said the rise of hate crimes is alarming, and that regardless of where one stands on Middle Eastern politics, such violent attacks are unacceptable because they are threatening to democracy and stability.
“It’s incumbent on Canadians to stand up and say it’s unacceptable. Not only hatred against Jews, but also of Hindus, Muslims, Christians or anyone else, because all people are made in God’s image.”
(Susan Korah is an Ottawa correspondent for The Catholic Register.)
A version of this story appeared in the February 02, 2025, issue of The Catholic Registerwith the headline "Pennings pieces together family role in saving Jews".
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