HEROINE OF THE HAGUE; For six terrible years, Grietje Scott and her family gave safe haven to Jewish families who were fleeing Hitler's brutal Gestapo. Now 90 and living in a Scots care home, we can reveal the amazing exploits of the..

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Byline: Sam WalkerBEHIND her shy smile, Grietje Scott hides a secret past - as a decorated hero of World War II.The woman who sits in the corner of a care home in Largs, Ayrshire, helped hide Jewish families from the dreaded Gestapo in Nazi-occupied Holland.And as a member of the Dutch Resistance, she dodged bullets and set up hideouts for commandos fighting behind enemy lines.But amazingly, she kept her heroism secret from her family until her 90th birthday on January 12.Modest Grietje - known as Kieks - said yesterday: "I just did what I had to do. I wouldn't call myself a hero."It was a very difficult time, I couldn't talk about it for 40 years."When the Jews arrived on our doorstep, we thought the war would end in six months. Once they came, we did our best to protect them, sharing our food and doing whatever we had to to keep them and us safe."I'm just glad I could do some good."Kieks Okma was 17 when war broke out in September 1939. Her dad Dirk died before the fighting and she lived in the suburbs of The Hague with her mother Truida, older sisters Truida, Ella, Trientje and Martha and brothers Willem, Ruurd and Douwe.Willem was in the Resistance and built a secret room in their home to hide Jews fleeing the Gestapo, who wanted to throw them into concentration camps.He closed off a small room upstairs and disguised the entrance with a mirror. The family used a buzzer downstairs to sound the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony if danger was nearby.And they set up mirrors at right angles to the windows of the hidden room to let the Jews look out without being seen.The first fugitives came in 1942 - Solomon and his wife Lien. Solomon was known as Piet to avoid suspicion about his Hebrew name.The couple were later joined by their two-year-old son Abraham, renamed Jeintje, who had been looked after by neighbours until his parents were settled.Then a nearby church brought a second couple, Joab and Geb Gardner. And in the summer of that year, a Jewish man named Kurtle Levin scrambled through the house's upstairs window and took shelter. He was renamed Chris.The growing household were supported by the Resistance as Kieks's mother worked as a courier and her brother Douwe forged documents for escapees.Kieks's son Andrew, 58, has written a book about his mother's war experience.He said: "There were obviously tensions in the house but they lived separately, taking different floors. It must have been difficult but they were all united against a common enemy."They all lived under one roof until 1943 when the Gestapo captured family friend Pete Van Brackel, who had brought the second couple to the house.The brave Resistance fighter was tortured for 15 days before he gave up his knowledge of the hidden Jews. He died a day later from his horrendous injuries.The Nazis staged a midnight raid on the Okmas' home but the family outfoxed them with lies and their secret room.Shortly after, Kieks's brother Willem was arrested and interrogated. He was so badly affected, he retired from the Resistance and she took up the work.By then in her early 20s, Kieks became involved with a Resistance fighter from Arnhem and together they carried out sabotage missions. They stole drums of Nazi petrol and set up hideouts for commandos fighting behind enemy lines. She once used her medical skills to help in the rescue of two fighters from the Nazi police HQ in Hoofddorp.But one day, Kieks came close to death when she was rounded up while walking on a country road. She thought she had been rumbled when Nazi soldiers commandeered her along with a group of locals to help disguise a V1 rocket from Allied air patrols.She escaped by running to a nearby field and lying still for hours.When she began to run away under the cover of darkness, she heard machine guns from the road, mowing down the other villagers.Kieks survived the rest of the war and after peace was declared returned the young boy to his family.She was re-introduced to old friend Archie Scott, whom she had met before the war, and the pair married in 1948.Archie worked as a bank manager at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Glasgow and the couple moved to Westerton, near Bearsden. The couple raised four children - Andrew, David, 56, Ella, 50, and Christine, 50.In 1978, Kieks was recognised for her bravery with a medal from bosses at the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem.Archie died in 1988 and Kieks bought a flat in Largs in 1992.Andrew, of Bearsden, said: "I'm very proud of my mum, she had a very difficult time after the war. She has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder but she has come through it."The Yad Vashem have said if you could reconstruct what my mother did in the Resistance you would epitomise what it meant to be in the Resistance."Andrew has written a 90 page book about his mother's wartime experience called A Roll in the Snow.A MEMORIAL TO MILLIONSYAD Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.Set up in 1952, it covers 45 acres and includes museums and memorials to the millions of victims. Each year, it has a million visitors.The Yad Vashem authority also honour non-Jews who risked their lives or positions to save Jews from death at the Nazis' hands.Those deemed worthy are named as "Righteous among the Nations". About 24,000 people have been given the honour.FOUR YEARS UNDER THE JACKBOOTGERMAN troops marched into the Netherlands in May 1940 and it was more than four years before the first Allied soldiers entered the country.The liberation began with a reconnaissance patrol on September 9, 1944. Three days later, the US infantry secured a small portion of Limburg. The Americans and British established a corridor to Nijmegen but couldn't capture a Rhine crossing at Arnhem.Meanwhile, the Canadians were fighting in Zeeland. By the beginning of 1945, the whole of the country's south was free.With the west of the country cut off from food, the Germans called a truce for an Allied relief effort.On May 5, 1945, the German forces in the Netherlands surrendered.CAPTION(S):INVASION When Nazi troops trundled into Amsterdam, above, and her home city of The Hague, Kieks wasn't prepared to lie down. She joined the Resistance, top right, and her family sheltered Jewish families including the boy Abraham, middle. After the war, she married Archie Scott, below