"FALL IN FOR the street commando!"
12. The Red Ticket "FALL IN FOR the street commando!" Making streets was heavy work. Betsie and I showed our red tickets, which we had just received from the Aufseherin. They were the sign that we were unable to do hard labor. We climbed on our cot and hummed a little song. We picked up the stockings, which we had to knit for the German soldiers.
"You seem to be happy," said the woman behind us. "We certainly are. We were called to enroll in the street commando, and look what we have." We showed the red tickets.
The woman smiled cynically. "Do you know what your red tickets mean? At the first cleaning up of prisoners, all the red-ticket owners disappear into the gas chamber."
We stopped humming our song. I looked through the window at the smoke which was going up from the crematorium and I thought, "When will my time come to be killed?"
Betsie saw what I was looking at. "Are you afraid, Corrie?"
Afraid? Of what? To feel the Spirit's glad release? To pass from pain to perfect peace? The strife and strain of life to cease?
Afraid of that?
JESUS IS VICTOR 401
I knew that my sins were forgiven, that my name was in the Book of Life, and that I had received Jesus as my Saviour. He had made me a child of God. Jesus gives eternal life. That means the life that belongs to eternity, to heaven. And I had that.
I knew that if they killed me I would go to the Father's house with many mansions. I looked death in the eyes. I saw the valley of the shadow of death. But I was not afraid, for I knew that I would not go alone through that valley. Jesus was going to take my hand and help me through.
How good to know that you belong to Jesus! Do you know it? If not, lay your hand in His strong hand. Those who come to Him, He will in no wise cast out.