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 bear 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 hard-working 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?
Chapter 12
Number 66730
Gather 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 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.
