Hetty Verolme was 15 years old when she was liberated from the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp on April 15, 1945. I learned of Hetty on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2020, as I listened to the BBC documentary, “The Children of Belsen.”  Speaking of her experience in the camp, Hetty said with certainty and conviction, “If you gave up hope, within two days you were dead.”  

The documentary aired over the noon hour in the early days of the pandemic. Hetty’s words stopped me cold. I thought maybe I misheard her, because I was getting lunch for my kids as I listened to it. There was a rebroadcast of the program later that night, so I listened to it again this time with no distractions. I also had an aqua-blue Post-It Note pad with me and a pen. Listening to the documentary again confirmed I hadn’t misheard anything.

At the time, I couldn’t understand how you could be hopeful in a place that was hell on earth. It just didn’t make sense. I made a few notes on a Post-It Note with the intention of trying to make sense of what I’d heard later on, so I tucked it in the drawer of my night stand and forgot about it.

In the Spring of 2022, my free time when the kids were in school was spent looking for a job and reading and watching videos about hope as a way to stay motivated and hopeful, especially about job prospects. But one day, after dropping Sam at school, the thought of going home and combing through job boards made my anxiety skyrocket. I decided to give myself a break from the job search. When I got home, I wanted to organize some things. I started with the drawer of my nightstand, which had become unruly.  While cleaning it out, I found a crumpled aqua-blue Post-It Note that I almost put in the recycle pile, but I looked more closely at it. Written on it was Bergen Belsen, Hetty Werkandam, 15, Holocaust Remembrance and 4/21. These were my notes from two years earlier.

That afternoon, I listened to the BBC documentary again. What Hetty said about hope keeping her alive even though she was surrounded by death and horror made more sense. Since I first heard Hetty’s story, I’d learned that hope is a way of thinking and not a feeling, so I was not surprised when I heard her also say, “You must believe that tomorrow will be a better day.” I understood that you can feel awful but still be hopeful.

Hope Is All Around

The more I learned about and read stories of hope, the more I saw it all around me. I thought of Liberty Community Church (Liberty), the only African American led Presbyterian Church in Minnesota located in North Minneapolis and co-pastored by Drs. Ralph and Alika Galloway. Their ministry includes the Northside Healing Space (NHS) and 21st Century Academy.  Liberty was originally located off of West Broadway only a block away from one of the busiest corners for sex trafficking in Minneapolis. NHS started as a safe drop-in center for the women and girls being exploited in the sex trade. It provided hope and an off ramp for them from the horrors of sexual exploitation. As NHS grew, the women and girls coming through the door challenged Liberty to be more hopeful and think bigger by helping to heal trauma in the broader community. 21st Century Academy works to eliminate the possibility of children being pulled into the sex trade by practicing radical hope “to create possibility, well-being and future readiness” in young scholars. 

I discovered just how important hope was to one of my favorite authors, Kate DiCamillo. My kids and I have read just about everyone of her books over the years and loved them. I dare you to read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and not cry. She received 473 rejections before her first book, Because of Winn-Dixie, was published. If I had been wearing pearls at the time that I learned that, I would have clutched them! Instead, I wrote that number on the aqua-blue Post-It Note. 

Just Keep Swimming

My lived experience had proven that tomorrow wasn’t always a better day, because I had plenty of tomorrows on record that had been worse! But I also knew from the science, stories and my own experience that while tomorrow may not be a better day, it didn’t mean you stopped hoping. It just meant patience and perseverance were required. Like Dory says in finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”

I returned to my job search, but increasingly I found myself thinking about hope - its power and benefits. That it was a choice to be made. The book Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life ends with four short sentences “Hope is measurable. Hope is malleable. Hope can rise. Spread the word.” I had a seed of an idea and the hope of growing it into something, so I planted it.

To Be Continued:

Becoming Ruthlessly Hopeful Part III: The Seed Sprouts

To Learn More

Visit Liberty Community Church to learn more about their Sunday service, the amazing work they are doing and ways to support it. 

KARE11 interviewed Kate DiCamillo earlier this year. Here is the extended interview that is worth watching.