Intersection Column | When Compassion Was a Crime

by Sarah Sundin

“Never in her life had Dr. Ivy Picot imagined herself a criminal.”

Before I was a writer, I was a pharmacist. Although I no longer practice pharmacy, I’m still fascinated by health care. Pharmacy had appealed to me as an opportunity to use my skills to help people—to prolong life and reduce suffering and to increase understanding. Compassion shines at the core of the health care professions.

But what if caring for the suffering was illegal?

On rare occasions as a pharmacist, I took a stand and refused to fill a prescription I knew could harm a patient, but my employer and the law backed me up. I faced no dangers for following my conscience and protecting patients—I wouldn’t lose my job or my pharmacy license. And I certainly wouldn’t go to prison.

That wasn’t the case under German occupation in World War II.

When I decided to write a novel set in Jersey in the Channel Islands, the only British territory occupied by the Germans, I searched for a story for my heroine. Then I read about a loose network of physicians who treated escaped slave workers on the island—and I had my inspiration. These workers, mostly Soviet prisoners of war, had been brought to Jersey to build German fortifications. They were treated abominably. Many escaped from their camps in search of food and freedom. To harbor—or care for—such men meant prison or a concentration camp.

The medical community in Jersey was already strapped. In Mists over the Channel Islands, Dr. Ivy Picot faces severe shortages of medications and supplies. She deals with deadly epidemics of diphtheria, whooping cough, and scarlet fever. She treats wounds that won’t heal properly because of malnutrition.

Yet my fictional Ivy joins the real-life physicians of Jersey in breaking a cruel and unjust law. Not only did this network of doctors treat the suffering, but they provided false papers and ration cards, and they helped the escapees find shelter.

When Ivy is asked to help, she draws strength from her medical training and her faith. As she says to herself, “Jesus had healed the leper and the lame, the rich and the poor, the Jew and the Gentile. He’d broken the law to heal on the Sabbath.”

Then Ivy’s values face another challenge. She meets Gerrit van der Zee, a Dutchman wearing the uniform of Germany’s Organisation Todt, the group that builds the fortifications and abuses their workers. What she doesn’t know—mustn’t know—is that Gerrit belongs to the resistance and is sending military intelligence to the Allies.

When Gerrit injures his hand, she’s tempted to turn away. Such a man doesn’t deserve care. Then her conscience pings. “But the man was hurting. To deny him care because of his political ideology would be as wrong as the Germans denying care to the Soviets because of theirs.” And she guides him to the hospital.

Writing Mists over the Channel Islands made me think. Would I risk my own safety and freedom to care for the suffering?

I pray I would. And I pray I never face such a choice.

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About the Author

Sarah Sundin is an ECPA-bestselling author of eighteen World War II novels, including Mists over the Channel Islands. Her novels have received the Christy Award and the Carol Award. Sarah lives in Southern California and serves as co-director of the West Coast Christian Writers Conference. www.sarahsundin.com.

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About the Book

Renowned WWII fiction author Sarah Sundin crafts a compelling historical romance featuring enemies-to-lovers, wartime resistance, and medical intrigue—a tale of loyalty, resilience, and courage when love and duty collide.