One is sometimes in danger of becoming irritated by people who did not stand the test themselves, and yet claim to know exactly what should have been said and done. There recently appeared a book [65] in which the author sharply criticizes much what was done, or was not done, during the German occupation of the Netherlands. <12> He himself took a very active part in the struggle. Perhaps that is the reason why his criticism is not without compassion, and that it is to a large extent self-criticism. In order to understand how difficult it was to risk one's life or even freedom on behalf of others, one had to have been in it oneself. I, who am now living in Israel, have sometimes, when lecturing on the subject, invited my audience to imagine for a moment that (God forbid!) some foreign power should occupy the land of Israel, say in the year 1980; and that this foreign power should deport many Jews for compulsory labour abroad, and also ration all food supplies, but that the Jewish part of the population should not risk their lives when complying with the demands of the enemy; that, however, the Christian minority in Israel should be deported and exterminated; that they should be deprived of their ration cards, that their identity cards should be stamped with a C, and that they must wear a yellow badge in the form of a cross, in order to distinguish them as Christians. I then asked the question: "would you be willing, in such a situation, to hide my wife, one of my children or me, who all look very "Aryan", though you knew that, as in every community, you were in danger of being betrayed and in even greater danger of being given away by careless talk of other people? Or would you, if you were the Chief Rabbi, be prepared to denounce the anti-Christian measures publicly and unequivocally?" 2 FACTORS LEADING TO PUBLIC PROTESTS There were many factors that led Churches to protest publicly. One of them is mentioned by the Executive Council of the Federal Council of Churches in the U.S.A. in 1941: "No true Christian Can be anti-Semitic in thought, word or deed without being untrue to his own Christian heritance." [66] But how often true Christians were untrue... <13> The National Council of the Reformed Church in France made a similar statement, in September, 1942, declaring: "A Christian Church would lose its soul and the reason for its existence, were it not to maintain... the Divine law above human contingencies." [67] The Bible (the Old as well as the New Testament) was frequently cited in the protests. This may appear strange to people who only knew that the New Testament was used as a source of anti-Semitic influence. The same applies, by the way, to the Old Testament. [68] In my opinion, this use is quite indefensible. We list some of the texts cited in the protests: