The first guest that Alice and Paul Paulus sheltered for the Dutch Resistance stayed with them for only a month because of his unwillingness to remain inside repeatedly placed the Paulus’s household at risk. The Dutch Resistance found him a new place of shelter and Alice and Paul were asked to shelter a young couple, Seli and Michel Nathan, who successfully hid in the Paulus’s home for two-and-a-half years. For most of this time, they hid upstairs in the attic, but as the war dragged on, the mounting dangers of betrayal and discovery took their toll on everyone’s nerves. A hole was dug under the kitchen floor that was large enough for the Nathans to sit up, and here they slept, hidden under the kitchen rug and table every night for six months.
A year into the Nathans’ stay, Alice presented them with a very special birthday gift. Seli and Michel’s deaf infant daughter had been sheltered by the Dutch Resistance in another, safer location. lice arranged for the child to be brought along the two-and-a-half hour long journey by train to visit with her parents for a few hours. The Nathans’ never forgot this kindness, nor any other given to them by Alice and Paul. The two couples remained close friends, long after the end of the war.
Edited by Stephanie Surach
Source: http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/album/paulus/paulus.html
