“Quickly, noses against the wall. Now!” yelled one of the German soldiers, pointing to the high concrete wall that surrounded the prison courtyard.
The crowd surged toward the wall, carrying Corrie along with it. Corrie found herself facing the concrete wall, glad to have something to lean against. Slowly, so as not to draw attention to herself, she turned her head from one side to the other. She spotted Willem, Nollie, and Betsie to her right, but she could not see Peter and her father anywhere. She felt panic rising in her. Anything seemed bearable as long as she could stay with her family.
Corrie dared not look down at her watch, but she figured they had all been standing with their noses against the wall for about an hour and a half. She was so weak from the flu, it was amazing she’d been able to stay standing for so long. Finally, from behind, someone barked instructions. “Female prisoners, to the right. Follow me.”
Corrie turned around quickly, hoping it would give her time to scan the group for her father and Peter. Betsie and Nollie jostled their way over until the three sisters were moving together. Corrie spotted Peter standing farther along the wall but could not see her father. She kept searching for him as the crowd of women moved towards a door to the right. Finally, her shoulders relaxed; there he was. Casper ten Boom was the only person in the courtyard sitting on a chair. Corrie marveled at how peaceful he looked. It was as if he were sitting in his favorite chair at the Beje, smoking a cigar and listening to a concert on the radio. On an impulse, Corrie yelled, “Father, God go with you!” Her voice echoed through the courtyard.
Casper ten Boom turned his head and smiled. “And with you, too, my daughters,” he called back. It was the last time Corrie, Betsie, and Nollie were to see their father.
Corrie grabbed Betsie’s arm, and they stepped in line to follow the other women. Corrie’s heart thumped loudly in her chest. She wondered whether she would be punished for yelling in the courtyard. If she was punished, it would be worth it to have heard her father’s voice one more time.
The metal doors clanged shut behind them. The women were all in a wide hall with a concrete floor. Along the middle of the floor ran a strip of seagrass matting. Corrie stepped onto it, grateful to have a little cushioning under her feet.
“Off the mat, now!” yelled the guard. “Prisoners are not permitted to step on the mat.”
Corrie and a group of other “offenders” stepped back onto the concrete. Corrie wondered how many other stupid rules the prison had. The women waited in a long line while their personal information was taken one more time and they were stripped of their personal belongings. Corrie took off her watch and her mother’s wedding ring and dropped them into a manila envelope. She was certain she would never see them again. Once all of the women had been processed this way, a female guard yelled for them to follow her. She picked up a clipboard, and they all headed down the hall. On each side were thick metal doors with numbers on them. The guard halted outside the first door and read a name from the list. It was one of the members of the prayer group. The woman staggered forward, a shocked expression on her face. Corrie felt sorry for her; less than twenty-four hours ago the woman had been an innocent participant in a prayer meeting above a clockshop. Now she was about to be locked up in a prison cell.
The guard produced a huge set of keys from her pocket, located the right one, and unlocked the cell door. Corrie stopped coughing long enough to crane her neck for a look inside. The cell was no larger than a full-sized bed, and three women were already in it. The guard pushed the woman inside and slammed the metal door shut. The sorry procession continued on. Only one woman was dropped off at any cell, never two or three together. Corrie’s heart sank. She guessed it was deliberately done so that no two women from Haarlem were together. Unless there was a miracle, she and her two older sisters would soon be separated.
And so they were. First Betsie was deposited in a cell, and then Nollie. She squeezed Corrie’s hand one last time before being pushed into a cell.
There were only three women left in the line when Corrie’s name was finally called. Corrie coughed and stepped into the cell. The guard yelled in after her, “Get off that bed and give it to this one; she’s sick.” Corrie stood with her back against the wall and adjusted her eyes to the light of a single bulb. Running along the right side of the wall was one narrow cot with a thin mattress covering it. On the floor beside it were three straw-filled pallets. Spread out as they were, the pallets took up the entire cell floor. Under the cot was a metal bucket with a lid and basin containing gray water.
“Sick! Don’t come near me if you’re sick!” screeched the old woman in a tattered green dress who was lying on the bed. “We’re going to die in here soon enough without your diseases.”
Corrie kept standing with her back against the door. She had no energy, and unless someone made room for her, there was nowhere else to go.
“Come on, frau,” she heard the young woman on the floor say to the woman on the bed. “I’m sure she’s not that sick.”
As if to contradict her, Corrie had a coughing fit. She could hear her chest gurgling, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Eventually the coughing stopped, and begrudgingly the older woman rolled off the cot and onto the floor with the other two women.
“I’m so sorry,” Corrie tried to apologize, but the younger woman stopped her.
“That’s all right,” she said soothingly. “Welcome to our cell.”
Corrie smiled weakly as she lay down. A billow of dust rose from the mattress along with the stench of urine. Corrie gagged and rolled onto her back. Slowly her eyes grew heavier and heavier until she fell asleep.
Clang! Clang! Corrie awoke with a start. Where was she? What was that noise?
“Hurry up,” urged a voice from below her. “Pick up your plate off the shelf or you won’t get any food.”
Corrie took a deep breath, and the memories of the night before came flooding back to her.
The older woman in the green dress pointed towards the door. Corrie crawled to the end of the cot and reached down. A small flap had been unlatched in the front of the door, and four plates of gruel were balanced on it. Corrie took the last plate and set it on her knees. She looked at it for a long time. It was a watery gray color with specks of something brown floating in it. She bent her head down to smell it and recoiled. Quickly she handed it to the woman in the green dress who had already gobbled hers down. “Here, eat this,” she said, “there’s no way I could.”
“Wanna bet?” said the old woman. “They all say that when they come here, but after a day or two, they’re gulping it down just like the rest of us. You’ll see.”
The woman was right. By the time the gruel arrived the following morning, Corrie was ready to eat it.
There were no windows in the cell, so the days were counted by the arrival of the food each morning. From there the day followed a dull routine. Around midday, the metal flap in the door was swung open again, and four slices of brown bread appeared. About an hour later, a key rattled in the lock, and the door was cracked open. One of the women handed out the toilet bucket, which sometimes had overflowed onto the pallets. The dirty water basin was also handed out and came back with fresh water. The toilet bucket was returned empty, along with two squares of toilet paper each.
Inside the cell, the women tried to be as polite to each other as possible, but each one was living her own personal nightmare. The youngest girl, who had spoken kindly to Corrie the night before, told her she was a baroness whose father had refused to serve in the German navy. She spent many hours each day pacing up and down the cell, six steps turn, six steps turn. She hardly ever sat down, and when she did, she would put her hands over her face and weep.
The old woman in the tattered green dress announced she was a cleaning woman who had not reported that a Jewish boy was living in a house she cleaned. She told the Gestapo she hadn’t known he was there, but it had made no difference.
The third woman spent hours at a time sitting with her right ear on the metal door.
“What is she doing?” Corrie asked the old woman in the green dress.
“Information,” she replied.
Corrie looked puzzled.
“She knows what every sound means in this hellhole,” the old woman went on. “She can tell you if it’s the matron walking past or a guard. She can even tell you which cell they stop at and how many people they take away. She gets it dead right every time. It’s uncanny.”
As if to prove the point, the third woman, still with her ear to the door, whispered, “Someone in 316 is being led away by a guard. They’re headed towards the west wing. Third time this week. I wonder what’s up?”
“Amazing,” said Corrie with genuine admiration. She herself was good at listening. Sometimes when a watch was not working right, she would listen to it carefully for a minute or two to see whether she could hear the problem. But this woman was truly remarkable in her listening abilities. “How long have you been here?” Corrie asked her.
“Three years, maybe a bit longer,” was the reply.
Corrie’s heart sank. Three years! The Germans would keep a person locked up for three years without seeing sunshine or feeling the wind, and without a bath or a book to read! “Poor father! Poor Betsie!” Corrie groaned as she sat wearily on the edge of the cot. She wondered how long she would be locked in the cell.
Chapter 9
The Clocks at the Beje Are Safe
A key rattled in the lock of the cell door. The door swung open, and the prison matron stepped into the cell. “ten Boom, Cornelia,” she bellowed as if there were forty prisoners in the cell, not four.
Corrie struggled into a sitting position on her cot. Every joint in her body ached, and every breath she drew was an effort.
“Get up. Bring your hat and coat and follow me,” the matron directed and stepped outside the cell to wait.
Corrie set her feet on the floor and stood up cautiously. She was still wearing her coat; it had been too cold to take it off since arriving in the cell three days earlier.
“A hat,” whispered the woman with remarkable hearing, still seated near the door. “A hat can be good or bad. It means you are leaving the building.”
As usual, the woman was right. Corrie was led down the hallway, out the door, and into a waiting car. She sank into the leather back seat of the car where several other prisoners were also seated. As they drove off, Corrie stared hungrily out the window. Had the sky always been such a brilliant blue? Had the clouds always danced across the sky like that? Fresh air streamed into the car, and Corrie breathed deeply to fill her lungs with it. And better, it was sea air with a delightful salty smell.
The car glided through the prison gates and out into the streets of Scheveningen. There were people everywhere in the streets: people walking, people standing on street corners talking, people walking their dogs, and children skipping. Corrie could hardly believe it was real. Did these people have any idea how blessed they were? They were free. Free to bathe and clean their teeth and read books and listen to music.
Corrie was so engrossed looking out the window she hardly noticed when the car slowed and finally stopped outside a large brick building. The passengers were told to get out and follow a guard up the steps into the building. One of the passengers was too sick to walk any farther, and to Corrie’s surprise, an orderly appeared with a wheelchair for him.
Several minutes later, Corrie found herself in a large waiting room with rows of wooden chairs. After an hour of sitting and waiting, she had to use the bathroom. She told a guard, who called the nurse seated at the desk in the corner. The nurse took Corrie’s arm and led her down the corridor. Instead of waiting outside the toilet cubicle, the nurse followed Corrie in and shut the door after them. “What can I get for you?” she whispered urgently.
