The following day, Corrie visited Fred Koornstra to see how he was recovering from his injuries. His right eye was swollen shut, and he had a huge gash on his forehead, but he smiled when he saw Corrie. He handed her a package to “share” with her family. When Corrie got home and opened it, there were one hundred ration cards inside.
Getting enough ration cards was only the beginning of things at the Beje. Neither Corrie, Betsie, nor Casper ten Boom had given much thought to some of the other aspects of hiding people for a long period, but help was on its way.
A week after the robbery, Corrie opened the door to find a Jewish woman and her three small children standing there. She ushered them inside and showed them into the dining room, where Betsie gave each of them a cup of soup. Just as Corrie and Betsie finished seating the children on cushions placed on the dining room chairs, there was a knock at the side door. Betsie raised her eyebrows and pulled more cups from the sideboard. It was going to be a busy night.
Corrie rushed to the door. It was after curfew time now, and anyone found on their doorstep would put them all in danger. Corrie swung the door open and pulled the broad-shouldered woman standing there inside. It was only in the light of the clockshop that she realized it wasn’t a woman at all, but Kik, her brother Willem’s oldest son.
“What are you doing here?” asked Corrie. “Is your family all right?”
Kik nodded. “Yes, Tante Corrie, I have come to take you somewhere.” And then surveying his aunt’s thin dress, he added, “Put on a coat now, and follow me.”
Corrie didn’t dare ask questions. She knew it must be important for Kik to risk their both being out after curfew. She raced up to her room and grabbed her coat. When she came down, Kik was wrapping an old sheet around the rims of her bicycle wheels. “Not too glamorous,” he said, smiling, “but it sure cuts down the noise.”
Corrie nodded gratefully and followed her nephew out into the brisk evening.
It seemed like an hour before Kik slowed his pace. It was a moonless night, and of course all the streetlights were out, so Corrie had to strain her eyes to keep Kik’s gray coat and green flowery scarf in view. They peddled through back alleys, over bridges, and between tall stands of trees, until finally Kik motioned for Corrie to stop. They were outside a large, stately house. Kik and Corrie got off their bikes. Then Kik reached over and pulled Corrie’s bike level with his. With one hand on each bicycle, he lifted the bikes into the air and carried them up the wide stairway to the house. There was no need to ring the doorbell. The door opened at just the right moment, and Kik walked in, a bicycle in each hand, as though it were the way he visited everybody. Corrie followed close at his heels. Inside, Kik took off the woman’s coat and untied the scarf. Now he looked like Kik again.
Corrie was surprised to see at least thirty bikes lined up along both sides of the elegant hallway inside the house. She wondered what kind of meeting would cause so many people to risk arrest for being out after curfew. Before she had time to think about an answer, she and Kik were ushered into the front room, where people sat in small groups, deep in serious discussion. A maid offered Corrie a cup of coffee. Corrie expected it to be brewed from the ground figs that had passed for coffee for the past eighteen months at the Beje, but she was happily mistaken. From the elegant silver coffeepot, the maid poured the strongest, blackest, richest-smelling coffee Corrie had seen in a long time. Of all the things about this strange night, Corrie would remember most the wonderful aroma of the coffee.
Kik seemed to know every person in the room, although he introduced everyone as Mr. or Mrs. “Smit.” Corrie understood perfectly; the less people were able to tell the Nazis about each other, the better. Soon the thirty or so Mr. and Mrs. “Smits” in the room were all explaining to Corrie how they could help her. There was an amazing array of offers of help. A man with a bald head said he could get permission to bury the bodies of divers. A woman with thick green stockings said she knew of a midwife who would deliver babies under “difficult” conditions. A younger man offered to reconnect the Beje’s telephone. The girl beside Corrie offered the services of an expert forger. Corrie tried to take in all the information, but her head was spinning. She hadn’t even thought about people dying or having secret babies at the Beje. For the first time, she understood that many of these people expected the occupation to go on for many more months, even years. Clearly, she and Betsie and her father were going to have to get more serious about their “guests.”
As she peddled back through the streets of Haarlem long after midnight, Corrie thought about the last conversation she’d had. A man with an enormous mustache had asked her where the guests at the Beje would hide during a raid. Corrie had to admit there was really nowhere; maybe they could climb out onto the roof and hide there. The man had shook his head and said, “That will not do. Lives depend on the right hiding place. I will send someone over to you in the next few days. His name is Smit, and he builds the best secret rooms in all of Haarlem.”
The next few days flowed much as the ones before. Some guests stayed one night, some stayed one week, and some, like Meyer Mossel, whom they had renamed “Eusie,” would stay till the end. Eusie had been a cantor at the synagogue in Amsterdam, and because of his Jewish looks, Willem had not been able to find anyone else who would risk taking him in. Eusie’s pregnant wife Dora and their two small sons were more fortunate; a Dutch farmer and his family were looking after them.
With more Jews arriving at the Beje every day, Corrie was very glad when, a week after the midnight meeting, a “Mr. Smit” stepped into the clockshop one morning and introduced himself as a building inspector.
Corrie greeted the little man and showed him all the precautions they had worked out so far. There was the clock advertisement in the window. Corrie explained to him that if it was ever turned upside down it was dangerous for anyone to enter. Mr. Smit thought that was a good idea. Next Corrie showed him the hiding place under the stairs where the radio was kept. He liked that, too, especially the way the hinge on the step was hidden. Then they began to discuss where to put a secret room.
The room had to be big enough for seven or eight adults to fit into, and Mr. Smit explained it should be as high up in the house as possible so the guests would have the best chance of reaching it once a soldier entered the house on the bottom floor. Corrie frowned when she heard this. Her bedroom was the highest room in the Beje, but her room was so small. How could there be enough space to add a secret room to it?
Corrie followed Mr. Smit up the spiral staircase. The higher he climbed, the more excited he got. “What an extraordinary house!” he exclaimed. “No two walls meet at right angles, no two rooms are on the same level. This is a wonderful opportunity. Here I’ll do my best work.” With that he flung open the door to Corrie’s room.
“Ah, this is where I will work,” he said with the passion of an artist. “When I’m finished, even you, dear lady, will swear there’s no secret room here.” He waved his arms toward the left wall of her room.
Before Corrie could say a word, Mr. Smit had shoved her bed aside, pulled a pencil and measuring tape from his pocket, and begun making sketches.
For a week Corrie slept on the couch in the parlor while Mr. Smit, the architect and builder, and Mr. Smit, the assistant, worked in her room. A steady stream of “customers” entered the Beje. One would have two or three bricks wrapped in a cloth and placed in a basket like loaves of fresh baked bread, while another would have a spirit level poked into his socks and covered by his pants. Corrie and Betsie tried to let the men work alone as much as possible. On the sixth day, Mr. Smit, the architect and builder, called them and their father to view his workmanship.
Corrie gasped, there was nothing to see! The room looked exactly as it always had. The linen closet stuck out just as far as it had before, the bookcase along the wall had the same worn-looking shelves, and the yellowed paint on the wall was peeling in places just like before. Even the molding was old and dusty.
“How did you do it?” Betsie asked.
Mr. Smit smiled. “We all have our little touches to add to the resistance,” he said with a smile. Then with a flourish, he opened the door to the linen closet. He reached under the bottom shelf and pulled a handle. There was a slight grinding noise as a piece of the wall slid back. Behind it was a hole big enough to crawl through.
“If you would care to try it out,” he said, looking at Corrie and Betsie.
One at a time they crawled into the space between the old wall and the new wall.
“It’s amazing,” said Corrie.
Betsie nodded. “I think it’s wide enough for a mattress, too.”
Mr. Smit stuck his head in. “As you will note, ladies, it’s high enough to stand up in and wide enough for three or four people to lie down. I have loosened one of the bricks about halfway up the outside wall. It can be removed to let in fresh air.”
Corrie and Betsie turned around and crawled out of the secret room.
“You should see inside it, Father,” exclaimed Corrie. “I’ve slept in this room for years, and I can hardly believe it’s in here.”
Casper ten Boom smiled. “What wonderful workmanship,” he complimented Mr. Smit.
“Thank you,” Mr. Smit replied. “I consider it some of my finest work. You will note that bricks were used instead of wood for the wall. That way, even if the wall is thumped, it will not sound hollow. And the floorboards have been cut level with the edge of the new wall. That way, if the Gestapo ever raid the house and begin to smash the floor looking for a hiding place, they will find no floorboards running under what’s supposed to be an outside wall. No, they’re going to have a hard job finding this secret room.”
Corrie’s father nodded. No one in the Beje knew it then, but Corrie would later learn that “Mr. Smit” was one of Europe’s most famous architects.
“Now there are certain other points to discuss,” continued Mr. Smit. “A secret room alone will not save anyone.”
Together they climbed down the spiral staircase and settled into the dining room. Betsie made a pot of tea while Mr. Smit gave Corrie a list of pointers. First he pointed out that everything a guest has should be stored in the secret room. That way, when the alarm is given, the guests just have to worry about getting themselves into the hole. And when they do have to flee to the room, they should be careful to take with them anything they’ve been doing, be it needlepoint, half-written letters, even pipe ashes, anything that would alert the Gestapo to there being someone else living in the house. If they were eating, they should take their food, plates, and silverware with them, too. There would be no way to get the extra plates washed and put away in time. The secret room should also be stocked with water and vitamins at all times, and a mattress should be on the floor along with a good supply of blankets and a pot with a lid to serve as a toilet.
Corrie’s mind boggled with all the details. She hoped she’d remember them all. But Mr. Smit was not finished. “The middle of the night is a favorite time for a Gestapo raid. You must practice waking each other from a dead sleep and getting to the room as quickly as possible in complete darkness. Remember, it will be quieter at night. Everyone must wear socks only, and no talking. And one more thing—if a raid happens in the night, everyone must turn his or her mattress over. It would not do for a Gestapo officer to feel a warm spot in an empty bed, would it?”
Corrie supposed it wouldn’t, but she could hardly imagine some of the young mothers and old women who had stayed with them so far flipping their mattresses over in the dark and then dragging three or four children to the secret room.
