Corrie frowned.
The trusty went on, “The Nazis won’t release prisoners who aren’t healthy. They’re scared it might look as though they didn’t look after them properly.”
Corrie nearly laughed out loud. She had been starved, beaten, and forced to work twelve hours a day, and every day in Ravensbruck, she had had to smell the burning bodies of women who had been gassed to death. And now they wouldn’t release her because she had swollen legs! It made no sense at all.
The trusty led Corrie into the back of the hospital and spoke to the nurse. Corrie was given a top bunk against a wall. As she settled down on the bunk to think about the day’s strange turn of events, she kept her legs propped up high against the wall. Swollen legs were the only thing that separated her from freedom!
Each morning Corrie got into a lineup of “released prisoners,” and each morning the same thing was written on her paper: “Swollen legs, return for treatment.” Corrie would return to her bunk and keep her legs elevated some more. The hospital had been a grim place when Betsie was brought to it, but now it had become a place of complete horror. A trainload of prisoners being transferred to Ravensbruck had been bombed by the Allies. Many of the women were badly hurt; some were missing arms and legs. The women screamed in agony through the night while the nurses mocked them and laughed at their pain. The bunks in the hospital were also so hopelessly overcrowded that during Corrie’s first night there, four women rolled off the bunks to their death.
But Corrie decided that the women worst off in all of Ravensbruck were the women who lined up with her each morning for inspection. Like her, they knew they would be free to go if they just got well enough. But even Corrie could see some of them would never be well enough; they were yellow with jaundice or coughed up blood, a sure sign of tuberculosis. Corrie felt so sorry for them. How cruel it was for them to have freedom dangling just out of their reach.
Finally, on December 28, ten days after entering the hospital, Corrie heard the words she had been waiting to hear: “Passed inspection.”
With those two words from the doctor, Corrie’s whole world changed. Instead of returning to her bunk in the hospital or to Barracks 28, she was whisked through another set of doors and into a hallway. A trusty showed her into a small room where racks of recycled women’s clothes hung in neat rows. “Find something that fits. I’ll be back in a minute,” said the trusty.
Corrie stared at the racks. Had she heard right? Did she get to choose for herself? She had been told what to do, where to sit, what to eat, and when to talk every day for the ten months she had been in prison, and now she was being told to choose for herself. She was still standing there when the trusty came back.
“Come on,” said the trusty. “Let me help you.”
Together they found a woolen skirt, a silk blouse, a hat and coat, and a good pair of lace-up shoes. Corrie had to leave the laces of the shoes undone, as her feet were still too swollen, but she tried to walk as if her feet were normal.
“There, you look wonderful,” said the trusty as she led Corrie from the room to a desk where she was handed a pen.
“Sign this,” said a guard, thrusting a piece of paper in front of her on the desk.
Corrie read what was written on the paper. It was a statement in German saying that the person signing had been treated well at Ravensbruck and had never been ill, never been hungry, and never been hurt. Her signature on the page was now all that stood between Corrie and freedom. Quickly she signed the paper.
Next she was given a slice of bread and a free train pass to get to the Dutch border. Last, a guard pulled a large manila envelope from a file cabinet and handed it to Corrie. With trembling hands, Corrie began to open the envelope. What could it possibly be? As she tore open the top of the envelope, out tumbled her mother’s wedding ring, her gold watch, and the Dutch gilders she’d had in her dress pocket when the Gestapo raided the Beje. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Move along,” said the guard, pointing towards the double doors at the end of the room. Corrie walked through them as she put on her wristwatch. She wound the watch and held it to her ear. It still ticked!
In the next room, she joined ten other women, all dressed in recycled clothes and clipping on watches, slipping on rings, and doing up necklaces. Corrie thought they looked like a bunch of ladies getting ready for church, except for one thing. They were all so thin that no matter how many clothes they had on, one could easily still see the outline of their bones.
Another guard walked in. “We are leaving,” she announced as she swept through the room.
The women glanced at each other and then followed her out the door into the cold December morning. They followed her right up to the huge iron gates of Ravensbruck. The guard yelled a few words at the gatekeepers, and the gates swung open. Freedom! Is it real, or was it a trick? Corrie kept asking herself over and over as she walked through the gates, up over the rise, and down the railroad track to a small train station. As she sat at the station waiting for a train to arrive, a terrible thought struck her. She might be free, but was she any safer outside Ravensbruck than she had been inside? She was near Berlin, deep inside Germany, right in the middle of a war zone. How would she ever make it safely back to Holland?
Chapter 14
Out from Under the Grip
A train rumbled into the small station. It was a freight train, but that didn’t matter to Corrie and the other women just released from Ravensbruck. They climbed into the empty boxcars. Corrie found herself sitting next to another Dutch woman, Claire Prins. As the train pulled away from the station, Corrie thought about the last time she’d ridden on a train. Eighty women to a car, no bathroom, and Betsie gasping for air. The memories flooded back, and soon tears were streaming down her face. Claire Prins, with her own memories and her own tears, put her arm around Corrie. “We are free, free at last,” she said between sobs.
Corrie nodded and wiped her eyes. Betsie had been right. It was three days before New Year’s Day 1945, and Corrie and Betsie, each in her own way, were free.
The train stopped many times, and as it did so, most of the other women from Ravensbruck got off to make connections. Finally, it was just Corrie and Claire alone in their boxcar. They peered out through the small holes in the sides of the car. Through them they could see the destruction of war. Hour after hour, the train chugged through burnt, barren countryside and cities inhabited by old people and women picking through the rubble of their homes. Corrie wondered what Haarlem would be like. Claire Prins, who had been sent to Ravensbruck from Holland after Corrie, told her that although southern Holland had been liberated by the Allied Forces, northern Holland was still in the grip of the Germans. The women were returning to Holland, but not a free Holland.
Finally, the train stopped one last time, and the boxcar door slid open. A man was standing by the door. “You women have to get out here. The train tracks have been blown up, and you can’t go any farther by train,” he said in perfect Dutch. Corrie and Claire smiled at each other; they were finally back in Holland.
Corrie and Claire climbed slowly from the boxcar and looked around. The train had stopped at a station. A sign on the platform read, “Welcome to Groningen.” Groningen was in the very north of Holland. To get to Haarlem, Corrie still needed to travel across the country. She didn’t know how she would do it, but nothing mattered more right then than being free and away from Germany.
A young woman on the platform looked at Corrie and Claire. “Excuse me,” she said, “but you might find help at the Deaconess Hospital. It’s about half a mile up the road.”
Corrie thanked the woman, wondering how terrible they must look if a complete stranger felt it necessary to give them directions to a hospital! Slowly and painfully the two women made their way up the street until they finally collapsed into comfortable chairs in the hospital waiting room.
Within minutes, two nurses appeared. One asked Corrie to follow her, while Claire Prins went with the other. Corrie was led into a small office overlooking a garden covered with snow. Corrie could see the outlines of trees and bushes, which looked beautiful, even with snow covering them.
“Tell me about yourself,” said the nurse, picking up a clipboard. “Where are you from?”
“Haarlem,” replied Corrie.
The nurse broke into a smile. “I am from Haarlem, too. Did you know a Corrie ten Boom there?” inquired the nurse, and then she added, “she’s probably quite a bit younger than you, I would think.”
Corrie stared closely at the nurse. “Truus. Truus Benes! Yes, it is you.”
“How did you know my name?” asked the nurse.
“It’s me. I am Corrie ten Boom,” said Corrie. “You were in my Triangle Club!”
“Tante Corrie. I don’t believe it! Is it really you?” she asked in disbelief.
Corrie nodded, wondering again what she must look like to other people.
Corrie and Truus sat for half an hour while Corrie told her story. Truus ordered tea and a cookie for Corrie to eat while she talked.
“What would you like most of all?” Truus asked as Corrie finished her story.
Corrie replied straightaway. There was one thing she had not had for nearly eleven long months. “A hot bath,” she said, longingly.
Soon Corrie was lying stretched out in a hot, deep bath. It felt so wonderful as the water lapped around her tired, aching body. But even more wonderful was the knowledge that no one was going to yell at her when she got out, and no one was going to escort her back to a barracks or cell.
Finally, after Truus had asked Corrie four times whether she wanted to get out, Corrie climbed from the tub and wrapped a clean, white towel around herself. How wonderful it felt! After Corrie dried herself, she decided to look in the mirror hanging on the left wall of the bathroom. She stood by the mirror for a moment, summoning her courage. Then she stepped in front of it and looked. Staring back at her was a scrawny old woman. Her hair was cut into short tufts, and her skin was deathly gray.
Truus Benes brought in a new set of clothes. Corrie was glad. She hadn’t been able to stop wondering whether the clothes she’d been given at Ravensbruck had belonged to some poor woman who had been gassed there. She was glad to be rid of anything that tied her thoughts to that horrible place.
Next, Corrie was taken to a private room, where she was given a bowl of soup and then tucked into bed. A bed with crisp white sheets, no less, and she had it all to herself. And no one was screaming in agony or cursing at her. She tried to stay awake for as long as possible to enjoy it all, but she was tired and was soon fast asleep.
When she finally awoke the next morning, breakfast was waiting, served on a white tablecloth with a silver knife and fork. Corrie could hardly believe the luxury.
Corrie stayed at the hospital for ten days. With rest and relaxation, the swelling in her legs quickly went down, and she felt much stronger after eating three meals a day. She also took a bath every day, and Nurse Benes arranged for her to have the little hair she had left “styled.” But one problem remained—how was she to get back to Haarlem? The Germans had put a complete travel ban in place all over northern Holland. The only people who were able to travel about were those on official Nazi business. And while Corrie was being fed well in the hospital, all over Holland, people were starving. It was a particularly cold winter, and trees were being ripped out of the ground so that every last piece of them could be used for firewood. People were also chopping up furniture to burn and boiling their prized tulip bulbs to eat.
Dutch farmers in the north were forbidden by the Nazis to sell their produce in Holland. It was all supposed to go to Germany to keep the soldiers fighting, but many Dutch farmers found ways around the rule. One brave group was stealing food right off supply trains and trucking it south. News came to the hospital that if Corrie wanted to, she could ride in one of the trucks that was headed to Hilversum with a load of stolen produce.
