Marion Pritchard – She shot a nazi to save Jewish children
“She reached up to a shelf and felt for the revolver given to her for emergencies. ‘It was him or the kids, so I shot him,” she says, unflinching. ”

If this Dutch lady had obeyed the gun laws, those kids would have died.

A good heart-warmer from the US News magazine.

By Samantha Levine

Like the angel of death, the Dutch police officer stood at the door. It was 2 o’clock in the morning, and he was hunting for Jews. Someone must have tipped him off to the three Jewish children sheltered in the home of Marion Pritchard. He entered the living room, his back to the bedroom where the youngsters were sleeping. Pritchard’s gut told her he would send them to a concentration camp. Within two minutes, she’d decided what to do. She reached up to a shelf and felt for the revolver given to her for emergencies. “It was him or the kids, so I shot him,” she says, unflinching. “It was a moment of excitement. I did it! I did it! The kids are safe! Then it was, what do I do with the body?”

During World War II, the Nazis murdered millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others. But thousands of ordinary folks risked their own lives to help the intended victims. Marion Pritchard was one of the rescuers, concealing a Jewish family for nearly three years.

“It was never a question,” says Pritchard, now 80 and a practicing psychoanalyst who lives in Vershire, Vt. “For somebody’s life, how could you not?”

The straightforward woman with the clipped Dutch accent is puzzled by those who don’t understand her conviction that hesitating in the face of evil is equal to siding with the enemy. Her brows knit together, she crosses her arms and asks, “What if nobody had done anything?”

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/heroes/pritchard.htm