"A carpenter came with a toolbox and said, ‘I’m a carpenter from the underground... Show me the house and I’ll build a hiding place."

Dr. Tina Strobos hid more than 100 Jews from the Nazis — 4 or 5 at a time. She died this week at the age of 91. She learned her values from her parents, "socialist atheists who took in Belgian refugees during World War I and hid German and Austrian refugees before World War II."

The Gestapo searched the rooming house several times. But Dr. Strobos, a tall, soft-spoken woman, beguiled the Germans with her fluency in their language and her cool, ingenuous pose....

Dr. Strobos rode her bicycle for miles outside the city to carry ration stamps to Jews hiding on farms. She transported radios to resistance fighters and stashed their guns. She created fake identity cards — ones that were not stamped with a J — either by stealing photographs and fingerprinted documents from legitimate guests at the boarding house or making deals with pickpockets to swipe documents from railway travelers.

She was cold and hungry when she took those risks and was interrogated nine times by the Gestapo. Once, she was left unconscious after an official threw her against a wall.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said when asked why she had taken such gambles. “Your conscience tells you to do it. I believe in heroism, and when you’re young you want to do dangerous things.”