Corrie ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels' Den
114. Corrie ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels' Den "There are prisoners in here who will take risks to help each other and prisoners who won't."
Each day the trusty came to her cell with the awful medicine, but she never said another word to Corrie. The medicine she brought, though, seemed to be working, and slowly Corrie began to feel better. Even so, no other prisoners were put in the cell with her. As the long, boring weeks rolled by, Corrie became very lonely. One day as she scratched another mark on the wall, she noticed it was April 15. It was her fifty-second birthday. She tried to sing a song to remind herself of the many happy birthdays she'd had at the Beje, but the guard banged on the cell door and yelled, "Prisoners are not permitted to sing. Shut up or kalte kost." So she sang the song in her head.
Hardly a minute went by that Corrie didn't think about her father and her family. She desperately wanted to know whether they were all right. Her answer came partly as the result of another birthday. Only five days after her own, on April 20, Adolf Hitler turned fifty-five years of age. The guards all went to a party to celebrate his birthday and left the cells unguarded. There was no thought of anyone's escaping; the doors were all locked, and the prisoners were fed so little that most of them could not have staggered far anyway. But the absence of the guards meant that the prisoners could yell to each other. At first, Corrie was confused by all the yelling, but gradually the noise died down, and the prisoners organized themselves. Up
The Clocks at the Beje Are Safe
and down the hallway from cell to cell they took turns yelling and listening back and forth.
Corrie was delighted to yell messages to the prisoners in the next cells to hers. "Tell Ruud Engers that Hetty was released in February." "To Rosina Kaufman, your mother is in cell 463; she is well and sends her love." Some of the messages, though, were sad, and it was hard to pass them on. "To Isaac Franken, they took our twins. Have you heard where they are? From your wife Gertrude."
"To Joel Kugler, your brother Fritz was sent to a labor camp last week."
To this stream of messages Corrie added her own. "I am Corrie ten Boom in cell 384. Is there any news of Casper, Willem, and Betsie ten Boom and Nollie and Peter van Woerden?"
She listened closely as the message echoed down the empty corridor. More messages flowed back and forth. Corrie waited and waited. Finally an answer came. "Willem ten Boom and Peter van Woerden were released." Corrie clapped her hands and laughed with joy.
Then there was another message. "Nollie van Woerden released." Corrie's hopes soared. Maybe all the other members of her family had been freed! But the next message told her otherwise: "Betsie ten Boom in cell 314 says to tell her sister God is good." How like Betsie. No matter how hard things were, she trusted God.
The stream of information continued. There were rumors about the war. The British air force had bombed the Public Records Building in The Hague, destroying many important Nazi records, and the Americans were making progress against the Japanese in the Pacific. Then finally, the clamor of voices began to die down until the prison was silent again.
Corrie sat on her cot and thought about the messages she had heard. It seemed everyone arrested at the Beje had been released except for Betsie and her. But what about her father? It was strange no one had any word of him; he was so old and distinguished looking with his long white beard, it would be hard to forget him. Corrie tried not to think the worst.
Two and a half weeks later on the May 3, Corrie found out why she had not heard about her father. A letter was dropped through the food slot. Corrie stared at it. She had waited so long for news from home, and now that it was lying on the floor in front of her, she was too scared to pick it up. Finally, she got up the courage and reached down and picked up the letter. It was from Nollie. Corrie tore it open. It did not start out well. "Dear Corrie," it read. "I need you to be very brave. The news I have to tell you is not going to be easy to read...." Corrie's eyes welled with tears, but she wiped them away and kept reading. "Father was in prison for only ten days; then his soul was released, and he went to be with the Lord."
Corrie burst into loud sobs. Her father, her dear, dear, wonderful father had died in this dirty prison surrounded by so much hatred and violence. Corrie could hardly bear to think about it. She could not be at his funeral, and she couldn't be with her family.
It was so unfair, and she sobbed louder. After many minutes of sobbing, she thought about the time her father had wanted to wear the yellow Star of David on his coat to identify with the Dutch Jews. When Corrie and Betsie had tried to stop him, he had told them, "If it is good enough for God's chosen people to suffer, then it is good enough for me to suffer with them." As Corrie thought about those words, she began to feel calmer. Her father had died for something he believed in, and he wouldn't have had it any other way.
The next morning Corrie reread the letter. As she did so, she noticed that the writing on the envelope was very sloped, while the writing in the letter was not. What could it mean? Was there a reason Nollie had done that? Suddenly she remembered a letter that had come to the Beje for her nephew Kik. Kik had soaked off the stamp, underneath which was an important message from the underground. With trembling hands, Corrie put the envelope into the basin of water. Sure enough, when the stamp had soaked off, she could see tiny writing. She held the envelope up to the light and read. "All the clocks at the Beje are safe." It was a code, but Corrie knew exactly what it meant. She broke into sobs once again. This time they were sobs of joy. Somehow all of the guests in the Angels' Den had made it to safety. For the first time since being arrested, Corrie felt something inside other than fear and dread. ae 10
The Reading orrie looked up from the gospel of Mark she was reading. Had someone stopped outside her cell door, or was it just her imagination? She had been alone in the cell for six weeks now with nothing to keep her company except a troop of ants and the silent daily visit of a trusty to deliver food and empty her toilet bucket. When a key clicked in the lock, she knew she hadn't been imagining. She quickly slipped the gospel of Mark under the mattress. A moment later, a tall, thin guard stepped into the room. Corrie didn't recognize her as one of the usual guards. yy she ordered in a gruff "ten Boom, follow me, voice.
Corrie climbed from the cot and reached for her coat.
"No, don't bother with that," said the guard. "Hurry up."
As Corrie scurried down the corridor after the guard, she wondered where they were taking her this time. It couldn't be back to the hospital in Scheveningen; she would need her hat and coat to leave the prison, and besides, she was feeling much better now.
The guard wound her way down several corridors, leading Corrie through areas of the prison she had never seen before. Every so often, Corrie heard a person talking or sobbing behind a cell door and wished she were able to stop and have a real conversation with another human being. But she kept on walking, and to her surprise, she was led outside after all. A blast of cold air wrapped itself around her as she stood in a small courtyard with four wooden huts crowded into it. All of the huts were painted gray and looked dull, like everything else in the prison, except for the hut on the far side of the courtyard. It was different. Around its dull, gray exterior was planted a row of yellow tulips. The tulips were past their prime, and the petals on many of the flowers were beginning to fall off, but that made no difference to Corrie. They were real flowers, and even if they were wilting, they were still the most beautiful things she had seen in a long time. Much to her delight, Corrie got to walk right past the tulips as the guard led her to the hut and motioned her to go in.
"Shut the door please, Miss ten Boom," a soft voice ordered from the far end of the hut.
The Reading
Corrie did as she was told and then turned to see who it was that had spoken. It was a mediumbuild man with sandy brown hair and dressed in full Nazi uniform, complete with a row of ribbons and medals. Much to Corrie's surprise, the man was smiling at her.
"My name is Lieutenant Rahms," he said courteously, removing his hat. "Please sit down." He motioned for Corrie to sit in the armchair beside the woodstove.
"Thank you," mumbled Corrie, unused to being treated with kindness.
"You look a little cold, and I have read in your files that you have not been well. Before we begin our conversation, let me put a few more logs on the fire." The lieutenant reached into the woodpile.
Corrie felt the warm glow of the fire on her as he opened the door of the stove and pushed three pieces of wood into it. How wonderful it felt, and so did the armchair, which had a padded back and thick cushions. Corrie felt as though she were in a dream. Then suddenly she came to her senses. There was a reason the lieutenant was treating her this way. She had been warned about this before she ever got to prison. Some of the Nazi interrogators tried to get information out of members of the underground by torturing them, but other interrogators used kindness to lull their prisoners into thinking they had a friend in the Gestapo. There and then Corrie promised herself she would keep her guard up. Too many lives depended on her keeping quiet about the things she knew.
Lieutenant Rahms finished stoking the fire and sat down in a chair opposite Corrie. "Now, let me see," he said. "There are a few matters we need to clear up. Iam going to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer as best you can."
Corrie nodded, amazed at the near perfect Dutch he spoke with only the slightest hint of a German accent.
The lieutenant reached into his breast pocket and casually pulled out a brown leather notebook. He flipped it open as he chatted. "Miss ten Boom," he began, "as you know, many mistakes are made during unfortunate times like these. I don't believe you should be in prison, and I want to help you find a way to get out of here. Would you like that?"
Corrie nodded. Who wouldn't like that?
"But," he continued in a soothing voice, "I can help you only if you tell me the whole truth. If you tell me everything you know, I'll see what I can do for you. How would that be?" he asked smiling.
Corrie smiled weakly back at him, trying to appear calmer than she really was.
"Good," replied the lieutenant. "Now, I am going to read you a list of names, and I want you to tell me which of them you recognize."
Corrie nodded. "Joel Colijn?" he paused, looked at Corrie and then went on. "Hans Frederiks?" The list went on and on.
Corrie relaxed and sank back into the warm embrace of the armchair as she listened. She had nothing to hide from the lieutenant; she really didn't recognize a single name on the list. She supposed the names were all members of the underground, but everyone she knew in the underground was called Smit. Corrie had no idea of their real names. So there was absolutely nothing she could tell him about the names in his little book.
When the lieutenant had finished reading all the names, he looked at Corrie. "Are you sure you don't recognize even one of these names? It would be a great help to me, and it would help you, too," he said softly.
Corrie shook her head. "I don't know any of them," she said.
For the next hour Lieutenant Rahms asked her all sorts of questions about the underground. Corrie had the impression he thought she was deeply involved in the business of getting extra ration cards, either by organizing raids on food offices or by using forged papers. Of all the things the underground did, this was the one area Corrie knew the least about what went on. She had only distributed the extra ration cards other members of the underground had obtained. So again it was easy for her to say nothing about how the underground got their extra ration cards. There was little she could have told him even if she had wanted to.
Finally, Lieutenant Rahms stopped asking specific questions and looked Corrie in the eye. "I can see you are an honest woman," he said. "Why don't I sit here and you tell me about the things you were involved in before you came to this prison."
Corrie eagerly sat up straight in the armchair.
Now she had something to talk about. "Well, lieutenant," she began. "My family and I have always been involved in telling others about Jesus Christ. Only the week before I was arrested, I visited one of the girls I had worked with for many years. She is mentally retarded, but I am sure she understands that God loves her."
"What a stupid waste of time!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "Why would God love someone who is defective? What good is a religion that accepts halfwits into its midst? The Third Reich accepts only those among us who are worthy specimens."
Corrie smiled. "I would like to tell you the truth, if I may, lieutenant," she announced to him.
The officer leaned forward in his chair. "Of course, go right ahead," he said, picking up a pencil.
Corrie took a deep breath. She knew it was crazy to say what she was about to say to a Nazi officer, but it was the truth, and he had asked for it. "You and I are human, and we look on the outside of a person, but God looks at a person's heart. He knows whether there is light or darkness inside the person, and that is what is important to Him."
Lieutenant Rahms did not say anything, so Corrie went on. "Some people have great darkness in their hearts. Are you one of those people, lieutenant?"
"Today's session is over," he replied coldly as he got up from his chair and flung the door open. "Guard," he yelled, "take this prisoner back to her Cell
The Reading 2D
Corrie took one last look at the tulips as she was led from the lieutenant's office back to her cell.
For the rest of the day and well into the night, Corrie wondered whether she had done the right thing. She had made Lieutenant Rahms angry, and he was the only person who had offered to help her get out of prison. Had she gone too far in telling him the truth?
Surprisingly, the guard came for her the next morning and the following two mornings after that. Each time, Corrie was taken to the tulip-encircled hut, and each time, Lieutenant Rahms was waiting for her with an extra log to stoke the fire. However, he did not ask her any more questions about the underground. Instead, he asked lots of questions about God and the Bible. He told Corrie that his wife and children were in Bremen back in Germany, and every morning he hoped they had lived through another night. He also confided to her that some mornings he wished he hadn't awakened at all. He hated his job at the prison, and he hated being a Nazi, but he could see no way out.
At last, Corrie understood what Betsie had been trying to tell her from the time the first German bombs had fallen on Holland. Many of the Germans were just as much victims of Adolf Hitler and his horrible Third Reich as were the Dutch. They, too, lived in fear for their lives and the lives of their families.
After four visits, Lieutenant Rahms announced he had finished his investigation and sent Corrie back to her cell for the last time. She didn't expect to see him again, but she was wrong. About a week later, her cell door swung open, and the lieutenant himself was standing there. "Follow me," he said kindly.
Corrie tried to straighten her matted hair as she stood up. She stepped into the corridor and followed the lieutenant. "Where are we going?" she felt comfortable enough to ask him, her heart racing wildly.
"T am taking you back to my office, where there will be a reading," he replied.
"A reading?" Corrie repeated, thinking back to the wonderful evenings of play reading Leendert had organized for the guests at the Beje. But what could Lieutenant Rahms possibly mean by a reading?
"You told me your father died in this prison three months ago, did you not?" he asked matterof-factly.
"Yes,"" answered Corrie. "Well, the lawyer is here to read the will to the family. That is the legal way it is done in Holland."
Corrie was not sure she understood. Why was he, a Nazi officer, worried about the legal way things were done in Holland? It didn't make any sense—a German invader who cared about the laws of Holland? Maybe the lieutenant hadn't been acting all the time after all; maybe he really did care.
Then another wonderful thought struck Corrie. Would she be at the reading alone, or did the lieutenant mean that her family would be waiting in his office? She didn't dare ask him, but she felt a spring
The Reading 127, in her step as she followed him down the corridor. They rounded the last corner and stepped out into the familiar courtyard. Lieutenant Rahms opened the door into his office for Corrie.
"Nollie!" Corrie's eyes grew wide with joy. "And Willem, Betsie, Tine, Flip. It's really you, you're here," she said over and over again as she hugged and rehugged each of them.
Corrie turned to hear the door click shut. Lieutenant Rahms was gone. "He must be waiting outside, we're alone," she said, almost unable to believe her good fortune.
"Quickly, take these before he comes back," Nollie said, handing Corrie and Betsie each a small Bible.
They both slipped the precious cargo into their coat pockets and thanked Nollie.
"Now tell me everything," urged Corrie, turning around to make sure the door was still shut. "We might not have much time."
Sitting arm in arm, the ten Boom family exchanged their news.
Willem had managed to find out a little about their father's death. He had caught pneumonia within a couple of days of arriving at the prison.
Finally, the other men in his cell had convinced the guards he needed medical help. But it was too late; he died lying on a stretcher alone outside the hospital. No one knew who he was, so as far as they had been able to determine, he had been buried in an unmarked grave. Corrie wept quietly as she listened.
Next Tine told them about Kik. He had been captured trying to smuggle a downed American airman to the North Sea coastline, where he was to be picked up and transported back to England. Tine and Willem had heard he'd been taken on a prison train into Germany.
"And what of the 'clocks' in the house?" Corrie wanted to know.
Flip told her the story. When everyone arrested at the Beje had been marched out of the police headquarters and onto the bus, Arnold had not been with them. Of course, he had been trapped by the raid and was one of those hiding in the Angels' Den. His father was sure he had been at the Beje at the time of the raid, so he started asking questions among his friends. Did anyone know of somewhere at the Beje Where a man in the underground might hide? Amazingly, one of the people he asked was the man who had built the hidden room, and once he found out who Arnold's father was, he gladly told him about the hiding place in the third-floor bedroom. Next Arnold's father talked to a Haarlem policeman whom he trusted, and a plan was hatched. The following evening, the Gestapo were going to hand over the job of patrolling the Beje to the local police. On the night of Wednesday, March 1, two days after the raid, the Dutch policemen who took over from the Gestapo found the entrance to the Angels' Den and knocked on it. The wall slid open, and out came six people, four Jews, Mary, Martha, Eusie, and Ronnie, and the two members of the underground, Hans and Arnold. Hans and Arnold thanked the policemen for rescuing them and slipped out onto the rooftop of the Beje. They jumped onto the roof of the house next door and disappeared into the night. The four Jewish "guests" waited quietly inside with the policemen until an underground worker came and guided them to safety. Then the policemen slid the door of the Angels' Den closed and went back to standing guard outside the Beje. As far as Flip knew, the Gestapo still hadn't found the Angels' Den.
Corrie could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had been so worried about the guests. Silently she thanked God; there were still good men in Holland like the policemen who had risked their lives for the guests at the Beje.
Just as Flip finished telling the story, the door opened and Lieutenant Rahms stepped inside. "Has the will been read yet?" he asked politely.
The Dutch lawyer who had been standing in the corner of the room indicated it had not and then opened a large envelope, pulled out a document, and began to read. There were no surprises in the will. Casper ten Boom's only belonging of any value was the Beje and its clockshop, which he left to Betsie and Corrie as long as they chose to live there.
When the reading was finished, the lieutenant walked over to Corrie. "You must go now," he ordered.
Corrie took one long, last look at her brother and sisters and stumbled out the door. She could hear Betsie being escorted out behind her.
When she got back to her cell she felt lonelier than ever. She lay on her cot and relived every moment of the visit. She was worried about Willem and Betsie. Although Willem was out of prison, he looked thin. and weak, and Betsie, with her blood disease, was paler than Corrie could ever remember seeing her. Corrie also thought about her father's will. The words the lawyer had read echoed in her mind: "Elizabeth and Cornelia can have the Beje as long as they choose to live there." After all the family had been through there, Corrie couldn't imagine living anywhere else but in that wonderful house on Barteljorisstraat in Haarlem. But before she could live there again, she had to survive her present nightmare.
Chapter
The Word Struck Terror ll prisoners, collect your things together and stand by your door," barked the voice of the guard. Corrie stood up; she had been crouching, having a "conversation" with a visiting ant. It was just after breakfast on June 12, 1944, and she had been a prisoner now for three and a half months.
Corrie scooped up the Bible Nollie had given her, placed it in her coat pocket, and stood by the door, her heart thumping wildly. What could it be? The other times she had left her cell it had been alone, but this time the guard was yelling for the whole prison block to prepare to move. Had the Allied Forces landed in Holland? Were they about to be freed? She stood eagerly by the door and waited for it to be unlocked. But nothing happened.
Lunchtime came and went, and still the door stayed locked. No one brought the usual slice of bread for lunch, and Corrie's stomach began to churn. Was it just a mean trick the guards were playing on them, trying to make everyone think they were leaving while they sat in their common room laughing at the stupid prisoners? Corrie was beginning to wonder.
Finally, at midafternoon, the door was unlocked and swung open. "Hurry up," a guard Corrie had never seen before yelled into her cell. "Fall into a line and march. Now!"
Corrie stepped out into the corridor, eager to see other human beings. The whole place was crowded with dirty, thin women. Even though Corrie didn't recognize any of them, she wanted to hug each one. They were fellow prisoners, and they were all living the same nightmare she was.
Like streams joining a river, the women in the cells near Corrie's joined the throng of prisoners marching along the corridor. As they marched, one word was whispered up and down the line of prisoners. "Invasion." Corrie hoped it was true. Maybe she would be free soon.
Before long, about one thousand men and women prisoners were standing in the courtyard. Corrie craned her neck looking for an auburn bun belonging to Betsie. Before she could spot her sister, Corrie was herded onto a large bus. The windows had been painted over and all the seats removed. "Move up, move up," yelled a guard, with his hand
The Word Struck Terror
on his rifle to help get his point across. Corrie felt herself being squeezed from all sides. "More, more," yelled the guard. "Do you think this is a sightseeing trip?" He laughed loudly at his own joke as he shoved the women closer together and waved for more to get on the bus.
When the guard was finally satisfied that not another body could be packed in, the bus lurched off. It swung dangerously around corners, and there was nothing to hold on to, but no one fell; everyone was packed in too tightly.
About twenty minutes later, the bus stopped and the door opened. Corrie was carried along from the bus by the crowd.
"Fall back into lines!" another guard yelled outside the bus, and Corrie shuffled into position, daring to turn her head slightly as she did so. The prisoners were on a large paved area beside a railroad track. There were no trains in sight, and the sun was beginning to set. Corrie had had nothing to eat since the meager breakfast prisoners were fed, and she felt weak and hungry. She hoped they would get some food to eat soon.
"Stand still," bellowed a guard as he slammed his rifle butt with all his might into the stomach of a woman. Corrie shut her eyes and prayed as the woman doubled over and collapsed. It was so hard to watch such needless cruelty.
For more than an hour, bus after bus brought more human cargo. Like most of the other prisoners, Corrie studied each new group that arrived.
She desperately wanted to catch a glimpse of Betsie. And then finally she saw an auburn bun. It had to be Betsie! As the woman in front of her shifted from one leg to the other, Corrie caught a better view. Her heart leapt. It was Betsie. Corrie tried to keep an eye on Betsie as her head bobbed in and out of lines of people. Eventually, Betsie joined a line of prisoners about one hundred yards from where Corrie was standing. Corrie promised herself she would find a way to get to Betsie before the day was over.
Corrie stood and waited, feeling the bodies of the other women near her. After three and a half months on her own in a cell, it was wonderful to have other women so close. And when the guard was not patrolling nearby, Corrie looked up at the sky. Pink, puffy clouds slid across the horizon in front of the setting sun. Corrie thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Finally, as the last rays of sunlight streaked through the clouds, she heard a noise. It got louder and louder until Corrie knew for sure it was a train. It hissed to a stop in front of the prisoners, spewing billows of smoke and steam in their faces.
"Get on. Stay in your lines," ordered the guard as he opened the first carriage. Quickly the orderly line broke down, and the women, each one eager to claim a seat rather than be left standing, surged forward. Corrie saw her chance. She had to resist the crowd and elbow her way to Betsie. She gritted her teeth and slipped into a space between two women.
Like a swimmer fighting a strong current, Corrie struggled to avoid being swept into the train by the flow of the prisoners. Just when Corrie didn't think she had enough strength to do it, Betsie bobbed back into view. She was only three or four people in front of her now. With a dive, Corrie parted the crowd and grabbed her sister's hand. Betsie turned to see who it was. "Corrie! Thank God it's you, Corrie," she beamed as they were carried along and up into the train by the rest of the crowd. They were grateful that they were able to find a seat together.
For several minutes all the two sisters could do was to put their heads on each other's shoulder and weep. It was such a relief to be together again. As they sat and wept and talked, time sped by. Occasionally, Corrie looked out the window into the darkness and wondered where they were heading. But it did not seem to matter so much now that she had her big sister with her.
Eventually the train came to a stop. Everyone now peered out the window, trying to work out where they were.
"Tt looks like we are in the woods." "T don't see a railway station." "We were definitely going south; I saw the Delft Cathedral tower."
The comments flew throughout the train as everyone waited nervously to see what the Nazis had in store for them next.
"Hurry. Hurry. Get out of the train," a guard began yelling.
Corrie helped Betsie to her feet, and once again they joined the sorry flow of women prisoners, not knowing where they were going.
Once outside the train, they realized that they were indeed in the middle of a forest. Corrie breathed in the heady scent of pine that filled the air. It smelled better to her than expensive perfume. Again the prisoners were ordered to form rows. Then they were told to march. After walking for more than a mile, they emerged from the forest into a clearing.
"Vught," the woman to Corrie's right muttered. The word struck terror in Corrie, who had heard about this place from the prisoners in her first cell at Scheveningen. Vught was located in the south of 'Holland near Brabant, but it was not a Dutch prison. It was a German concentration camp especially designed for prisoners the Nazis thought were the most dangerous to them. Corrie could feel the dread rising inside her as they marched through the barbed-wire gates of the camp and into the first building. They were in a dining room with rows of long wooden tables. Corrie and Betsie found seats together, laid their heads side by side on a tabletop, and drifted off to sleep, exhausted from the trip.
Despite the fact that she was in a notorious concentration camp, Corrie was happier at Vught than she had been at Scheveningen. There were other people around to talk to, she slept next to her sister, and together they held Bible studies in the evenings for the other women prisoners. Everyone was given a job to do, and even though they worked for twelve
The Word Struck Terror 137, hours every day, it was far better to Corrie than sitting alone in a cell with only ants for company. Corrie's job was at the "Phillip's Factory," one of the clapboard prison barracks buildings where prisoners put together radios for German fighter planes. Corrie started out sorting glass rods into groups by size, but when Mr. Moorman, a kind trusty who was her supervisor, found out she was a watchmaker, he gave her a much more technical job to do. At lunchtime, the workers were given half an hour off, and Corrie would use it to lie on the grass soaking up the sun.
But Corrie was worried about her sister. Betsie seemed to be getting weaker by the day. She was assigned to work in the sewing room, along with many of the other older prisoners and young mothers with babies. She told Corrie the work was easy, mainly mending uniforms and pillowcases. But after a few days, Corrie began to wonder. Betsie's hands were swollen, and one day she came back to the barracks with them wrapped in rags. After a lot of questioning, she admitted to Corrie that most of her day was spent braiding heavy ropes together. She hadn't told Corrie about it because she did not want her to worry. There were enough other things to worry about in Vught. But Corrie did worry. She wondered how long Betsie's weakened body would hold up under such difficult circumstances.
Back in Scheveningen, Corrie's world had been no bigger than her cell, but at Vught, she was surrounded by other people and their problems and difficulties. The woman who worked next to her putting together the radios had a baby one night, but the child was as weak as her mother and was dead by morning. A young Jewish girl received a letter telling her that her brother had been shot trying to steal some food. Now she was the only living member of her family left. The list went on and on. Every woman had a tale of misery to tell. Many of the women had husbands or sons locked up in the men's side of the concentration camp.
Spring turned into summer, and things began to get more tense in Vught. The guards exploded in rage at the littlest thing, and all the prisoners were punished for one person's "crime." More often, Corrie found herself lined up for roll call at four in the morning instead of the usual five o'clock. The women would have to stand at attention for the extra hour. Corrie continued to worry about Betsie, who was skinnier than ever, now weighing under ninety pounds. And Corrie's stomach particularly churned itself into knots with worry during the long roll calls. Corrie knew that the women who collapsed at roll call were punished with a trip to the bunkers, tiny cupboards the size of a coffin. The prisoner was locked inside one of the cupboards for the day with no air and no food. Many women never came back to the barracks after going to the bunkers. Corrie hoped and prayed Betsie wouldn't be one of them.
The concentration camp began to get overcrowded as prisoners from other prisons in Holland were brought there. Everyone waited for night to fall so that they could question the new arrivals. Mostly they had rumors to report, but sometimes someone had real information. By late July, there was talk of the Russian army invading Poland. And then in August, news began filtering into the camp of an invasion of France at Normandy by Allied Forces. According to rumor, the Allies had already liberated Paris. The prisoners hoped and prayed that it was true. In fact, it was. On June 6, 1944, the Allied Forces had begun the massive D-Day invasion of France. They had met fierce German opposition, but eventually they had prevailed and were now beginning to push the Germans back.
Rumor also had it that some of the Dutch troops who had escaped to England at the beginning of the occupation were on the move. The Princess Irene Brigade, as they called themselves, was pressing into Belgium and would march into southern Holland soon. Corrie thought that much of this news was probably true, and it would explain why the guards had become extra nasty. And then came news that Adolf Hitler had been injured by a bomb. Some of his own officers had apparently tried to kill him. Things were not going well for the Germans.
In late August came the first sign that an Allied invasion had indeed taken place. One day as Corrie lay in the noonday sun, she heard an airplane overhead, then a second and a third. Soon the sky was filled with steel gray aircraft, and not with the dreaded swastika emblem on their wings but with the red, white, and blue circles of the British air force. The other women sitting on the grass all sprang to their feet. No one stopped them as they waved and cheered at the bombers above until they were hoarse.
As the women watched, the sky suddenly erupted in flashes of orange. Antiaircraft guns were firing at the planes, and then German fighters swooped in from the northeast with their guns blazing. A huge air battle began. Planes were hit and billowed black smoke as they plummeted to the ground. Bits of shrapnel from the battle started to rain down on them. Some large pieces pelted the barracks, and five women were dragged off to the hospital wounded. Even so, there was a wonderful excitement in the concentration camp. Surely they would be rescued any day soon.
Corrie and Betsie began planning what they would do once they were freed. The Beje had been shut up for five months now. The rugs would need to be taken out onto the roof and beaten. Then there were the holes in the walls and floors where the Nazis had searched for the Angels' Den. They would have to get a good carpenter to fix it all up. And when it was all repaired, they would hold a big party to celebrate their return. All of their friends would be there.
A week later, though, Corrie was still twisting wires together for radios. As she did so, the whole building shook and was filled with a deafening boom. The massive explosion was not far away. Corrie felt her ears block up. "Swallow and then breathe with your mouth open," yelled Mr. Moorman as the workers all dived under the tables. Boom! Another explosion, and then another. The explosions continued for half an hour and then stopped as suddenly they had begun. One by one the prisoners crawled from their hiding places to discuss what it could all mean.
"The Allies must be bombing Brabant." "Are you sure it wasn't cannons firing close by?"
"The Princess Irene Brigade is here; we'll be free by tomorrow."
Suggestions of what was happening buzzed around the room, and then Mr. Moorman spoke. "I don't think it was guns or cannons; it sounded like bombs. But I didn't hear them whistle like they do when they are falling from an airplane. And they were regular. My guess is that the Germans are blowing up bridges and buildings before they retreat. That's the way they've done it before."
Corrie believed Mr. Moorman, an intelligent man who had been the principal of a large Catholic school before the war. Mr. Moorman seemed to be right about most things. Corrie wondered what it would mean for the prisoners in Vught. Would they be set free? Corrie hoped more than anything that that's what would happen, but inside her she couldn't imagine anyone as cruel as their guards just opening the gates and letting them all go before they retreated. And she was right.
About an hour later, an announcement blared over the camp loudspeakers. "Roll call for everyone. Return to your barracks immediately."
Nothing like this had ever happened before. Life followed a very strict routine in Vught concentration camp. People were afraid. Men and women hugged each other desperately before the guards came in to hurry the prisoners along with their rifle butts.
Corrie rushed back to the barracks. A wave of relief swept over her when she found Betsie already there. The women lined up in front of the building and waited to see what would happen next. They didn't have to wait long. The air filled with popping noises. Then silence and then another round of popping noises. "Guns! They're executing the men!" screamed one of the women as she collapsed. Other women began to sob and wail. Some yelled abuse and shrieked loudly at their German captors. The guards just turned and walked away.
For two hours the women stood together listening to the horrible sound. And then, since no guards had returned, they drifted back into their barracks. Many of the women who had listened to the ten Boom sisters' Bible studies came to pray with Corrie and Betsie.
When they finally lay down to sleep that night, Betsie whispered to Corrie, "I am so grateful." Corrie looked at her sister and wondered what she could possibly be grateful about on such an awful day. Betsie put her arm around Corrie and continued. "I am so grateful our dear father died when he did. I couldn't bare to think of him living through any of this." Corrie felt a lump rising in her throat. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She cried for herself. She cried for Betsie. And she cried for every woman in the barracks.
All night long the room was filled with the sobbing and moaning of grieving women. Corrie could not sleep. She lay on her back wondering what it all meant for the women prisoners. Mr. Moorman must have been right; the Nazis were getting ready to retreat. Why else would they kill so many hardworking men? And then she tried to block the next thought from her mind, but it kept creeping back. If the Germans had killed the men prisoners today, were they planning to kill the women prisoners tomorrow?
Number 66730 'action your things together; you're moving out, now," screamed one of the female guards. Corrie looked at Betsie and breathed a sigh of relief. If they were taking their belongings with them, then probably they really were going to be transferred somewhere and not just lined up outside and shot like the men had been. So the two sisters stuffed their meager belongings into a pillowcase. There was a small bottle of vitamin drops from a Red Cross parcel; it was nearly empty, but they were trying to stretch it as far as possible. Nollie had sent Betsie a blue woolen sweater. Amazingly, the package containing it had reached her in Vught. Corrie stuffed the sweater into the pillowcase. Their belongings barely made a bump in the bottom of the pillowcase as Corrie swung it over her shoulder. The only other thing they owned was too precious to put in the pillowcase. It was the small Bible Nollie had given Corrie at the reading of their father's will. Betsie had made a small cloth pouch for it in the sewing room, and it always hung around one of their necks. Nollie had given Betsie a Bible at the same time, but Betsie had given it to another needy woman. So now she and Corrie shared Corrie's Bible. Their belongings in hand, the two sisters lined up for one last roll call at Vught concentration camp.
After roll call the women were marched five abreast out of the camp. A large truck was parked at the gate. As each line of prisoners marched past the truck, it was stopped for a moment, and every woman in the line was handed a blanket. This made no sense to Corrie. They had just left blankets in their barracks, so why take the time to hand out new ones? Corrie couldn't think of an answer, but then, so many things the Germans did made no sense to her. Since the blankets were thick, much too heavy for Betsie to carry in her weakened state, Corrie carried Betsie's blanket as well as her own as they marched away from the camp.
The women retraced the route they had marched to Vught from the train. When they reached the railroad tracks, a guard ordered them to halt. Corrie peered up and down the track but saw no passenger train like the one that had brought them from Scheveningen, only a line of large boxcars. German
Number 66730
soldiers were perched on top of them, their machine guns pointed at the women. Once Corrie would have been terrified if someone pointed a gun at her. Now she thought nothing of it.
The woman to the left of Corrie looked up at the soldiers. "What does it matter if they shoot us now, we are all going to die anyway," she said.
Corrie reached out her hand to comfort the woman. She wanted to say, "That's not true, don't think like that," but it would be a lie. After all, look at what the Nazis had done to the men the day before.
A tall, dark-haired soldier marched the length of the train unlocking the boxcars and sliding their doors open. Corrie gasped. She knew what was going to happen. All the women, about one thousand of them, were going to be pushed into the boxcars, Which had no windows or seats and weren't designed to carry animals, much less human beings!
"Move it, you old cows, we've got to get eighty of you in each car," a guard near Corrie yelled. Corrie felt a gun press into her back, and together the women surged onto the boxcar. Several of them had to help Betsie up, as it was too high for her to climb. Once inside, they moved as far back as they could as more women were ordered into the boxcar. Finally, when Corrie could hardly breathe, the door was slid shut. The women were alone in total darkness.
At first they all panicked. Women screamed and clawed at the walls, but after about an hour, they calmed down enough to organize themselves. They found that if each woman sat with her legs apart like on a bobsled, there was enough room for them all to sit on the floor of the boxcar. They tucked their blankets around themselves and waited. During the rest of the day the boxcar was shunted backwards and forwards, never moving more than a few feet in either direction as the boxcars were connected to form a long train. Inside, women needed to go to the bathroom, but there was no bucket—and no way to climb over the wall of bodies to get to one even if there had been. They had no choice but to go right where they were sitting. Corrie didn't know which was worse, the embarrassment or the stench. By nightfall, some of the women sitting near the sides of the boxcar had managed to gouge some small holes in the timber, and some fresh air trickled in. About the same time, the women heard popping noises against the outside of the boxcar. They all sat still and listened.
"Sounds like hailstones," whispered one of the women.
"No, it's not on the roof; it's just hitting the side of the car," said another woman.
"Machine guns," said yet another woman. They were being fired upon! This could mean only one thing. The Allied Forces must be very close. Excitement filled the boxcar. At any moment the doors could be flung open and they could be free. But neither happened. Half an hour later, they felt the train begin to move, slowly at first, then gathering speed. The excitement left the boxcar as quickly as it had come. The women sat in silence. There was no need to say anything; it was obvious they were headed east into Germany. Where else was there left to take them?
"Why are they bothering to take us to Germany? We are a group of weak, half-starved Dutch women. Why would they waste a train trip on us?" Corrie asked out loud. No one in the boxcar could think of an answer.
The train sped on. The boxcar smelled so disgusting that Corrie had to force herself to breathe. The women near the holes in the side of the boxcar yelled out to notify the others when it got dark or light. First one night passed, then another, and then a third. Finally, the train ground to a halt. The women heard the sound of young boys yelling in German, and then the door to the boxcar slid open. Corrie raised her arm to shield her eyes from the intense light that spilled in.
The pressure of eighty women packed into such a tiny space pushed out those near the door. The women fell the four feet onto the stones beside the railroad track. More of the women inside the boxcar crawled towards the fresh air. They were all too exhausted to do anything more than fall out of the doorway on top of the others. Soon there were large piles of women outside the doors of every boxcar in the train. Slowly, the stronger women pulled themselves free of the piles. There was a small lake about twenty feet from the train, and the women began to crawl towards it. Corrie was one of them. She left Betsie in the pile of women and promised to come back for her. Over the rough rocks she crawled, her knees bleeding as she went, her eyes fixed firmly on the water in front of her.
Finally, Corrie collapsed beside the lake. She sank her face into the water. How wonderful it felt! She let it lap over her hair and around her neck. She gulped mouthfuls of it. All along the lake edge, other women were doing the same.
After a few minutes, Corrie felt strong enough to sit up. She looked around. Unlike the guards in Holland who were grown men and women, the guards here were teenage boys. Some of them didn't even look fifteen years old. Corrie shook her head. Over a thousand women were being controlled by seven teenage boys with guns. In truth, there was no need for more than seven guards; none of the women had the strength to resist.
One of the young guards carrying a pile of canvas bags threw one down near Corrie. "Carry water," he barked in German.
Corrie dipped the bag into the lake and stood up. Her whole body wobbled as she staggered back to the train with the water. Betsie had managed to crawl a little distance from the pile of other women. Corrie found her and poured some water over her. "Thank you," she mouthed through her cracked lips. Corrie went on, pouring water into other prisoners' mouths. Some of them, though, were unconscious, and the eyes of others were rolled back in their sockets. Corrie knew they were dead.
When the water was gone, Corrie handed the canvas bag to another prisoner and lay down beside Betsie. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Birds cheeped in nearby trees, and a German farmer drove his horse and hay cart down the road beside the railroad track. It all seemed so normal, except for the dead and dying women lying beside the train.
"Get up. Get moving," screamed one of the young guards, hitching up his uniform pants, which were too big for him. Corrie stayed where she was. How easy it would be to give up right now, she thought. Betsie and I could die together, lying in the sun, listening to the birds.
"Come on, we have to get up." Betsie's voice broke into her thoughts. Corrie turned her head to look at her sister. She could clearly see the bones beneath her skin and the shape of her skull beneath her thin, gaunt face. Betsie's lips were dry and cracked. Corrie scrambled to her feet. If her big sister could go on, so could she.
Supporting each other, Corrie and Betsie joined the ragtag line of women that had begun disappearing over a small rise to the right of the train past the small lake. Slowly, the two sisters climbed to the top of the rise. By the time they got there, Betsie was completely out of breath. They stood for a moment looking down from the rise. The sight laid out below made Corrie close her eyes in fear and dread. Stretching as far as she could see was row upon row of gray clapboard buildings, just like the ones they had left in Vught. A huge brick wall with barbed wire along its top surrounded the buildings, and