CHAPTER TEN - Scheveningen
Summary
They ended up in The Hague at the Gestapo Headquarters for all of Holland. The Gestapo chief seemed inclined to send Father home, if he promised not to cause any more trouble. But Father replied, If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door again to any man in need who knocks. They sent him back in line, and they were all then questioned endlessly the remainder of the day. Later that night, they were loaded into an army truck and taken to the federal prison of Scheveningen. They were unloaded and stood noses against the wall until the women prisoners were eventually separated. As Corrie and Betsie were led away, Corrie turned and shouted, Father! God be with you! The Grand Old Man of Haarlem quietly turned their way and replied, And with you, my daughters. Corrie had no idea if she would ever see her father again. Betsie and Corrie were then led to separate cells so that no two people from Haarlem would be together. Already it seemed to Corrie that the events of the Beje had taken place hundreds of years before. She ended up in a cell with four other women, who at first were angry that she was ill, but eventually stopped their complaining and accepted her presence. Corrie settled into the worse part of all: the prison boredom which allowed her too much time to think. To overcome her wild thoughts, she asked Frau Mikes, one of the other women in her cell, to teach her how to play cards. The woman had made a deck from toilet tissue and taught Corrie how to play Solitaire. Corrie wondered why Father had never allowed cards in their house, because it seemed an innocent pastime. But soon, she began to recognize the subtle danger: when the cards went well, her spirits rose, too; but when she lost, she gave into despair. So, at last, she had to stop playing.
Corrie's illness didn't let up, and one day about two weeks after she was arrested, she was led to a black car in the courtyard of the prison and taken away with two other very ill people. She wondered if they were being taken to a hospital. Eventually, she was taken to a very crowded building and led away from the lobby by a uniformed nurse. The nurse quickly asked her if there was anything she could get her. Corrie asked immediately for a Bible, needle and thread, and a toothbrush and soap. The nurse's kindness shone throughout the room, and she promised Corrie to get what she could. When she saw a doctor at last, he diagnosed her with pleurisy and said she was pre-tubercular. He whispered that he hoped he was doing her favor with the diagnosis. They finally took her back to the prison, and when she opened the little package the nurse had secretly handed to her, she found two bars of soap, a whole packet of safety pins, and the four Gospels. She shared all she had with her cellmates, but none would accept the Gospels out of fear of the reprisals if they were discovered.
Two evenings later, Corrie was moved from her cell deeper into the prison to another cell where she was alone. She wondered if this was her sentence: to be held in solitary confinement forever. Her illness raged on, and the only human contact she ever saw was the hand of someone delivering her food or a matron appearing with a tray. Even then, no one would talk to her. Also, every day, a trusty from medical supply would bring her some stinging yellow medicine from a dirty bottle. Here her thoughts became even greater enemies than the Germans as she had no idea what had happened to those she loved. She would dream of personal comforts like toothpaste and then scold herself for such selfish thoughts. Fortunately, this cell had a window that was high on the wall and barred, but at least, it allowed her to see the sky. She sustained herself with this view of Heaven and the Scriptures she could read. Eventually, she began to wonder if all of this suffering was no accident, just as the suffering Jesus had endured had a greater purpose. It gave her comfort in the bleak surroundings where she found herself imprisoned.
Two days after her birthday, April 17, 1944, Corrie finally was led to the showers. She didn't see Betsie or Nollie, but thought that all the other women waiting in line were her sisters, too. The shower was glorious, and when she was led back to her solitary cell, she discovered she was no longer alone: a single, busy black ant had come into the cell and was living in a crack in the floor. Corrie gave him pieces of her bread and admired his strength and courage as he struggled with it back into the crack in the floor. She now felt less alone.
One evening, she began to hear voices from other cells around her. The guards had left to celebrate Hitler's birthday, and it gave the prisoners the chance to communicate with each other and learn what gossip or news everyone knew. Corrie learned that Betsie was in cell 312 and that she had told someone to tell Corrie that God was good. Nollie had been in cell 318, but she had been released a month before. Peter, Pickwick, and Willem had also been release, but there was no word of Father.
A week later, the trusty threw a package into Corrie's cell and inside was a light blue sweater from Nollie as well as cookies, vitamins, needle and thread, and a bright red towel. Corrie, who had been starved for color, was delighted with the package and even used the bright red cellophane that had been around the cookies to fashion a lamp shade around the overhead bulb in the ceiling of her cell. Then, she discovered that the address on the package was not written in Nollie's handwriting, and she remembered how a message had once come to the Beje underneath the stamp of a package. So she carefully worked the stamp on this package free until she read the words underneath: All the watches in your closet are safe. She now knew that the Jews who had gone to the secret room on the day of the raid were safe. She thanked God for His goodness.
Later, a German officer came into her cell and read off many names to see if she knew who they were and if they were part of her network. She honestly could say this time that she knew none of them and realized the wisdom of the network calling everyone by the name of Smit.
By the third of May, 1944, Corrie had come up with a new activity: pulling the threads from the red towel and embroidering bright figures on the pajamas that she had recently stopped wearing under her clothes. On the same day, a letter arrived from Nollie, and it frightened her, because it was the first one she had received. Nollie asked her in her fine handwriting to be very brave, because Father had survived his arrest by only ten days. She had no details about how he had died and had no idea where he was buried. Corrie was so overcome by grief that she called out to one of the guards to talk to her, but the guard only told her it was her own fault since she had hidden Jews. Corrie pulled back with the realization that she should have never turned to humans for comfort when God was there with her. She was grateful that Father and Mother were now together and walking the bright streets of Heaven. She wrote on the wall of her cell, as she had every day since she had come there, the date and words to note what the day had brought. This day, however, she wrote a different date, the date of her father's death: March 9, 1944. Father. Released.
Notes
In this retelling of Corrie's time at Scheveningen Prison, we see how she learns to deal with adversity. There are many metaphors to note: first, the deck of cards represents how turning to something other than God can turn one's thoughts to despair; when Corrie is taken to the solitary cell, she walks through a maze of corridors, deeper and deeper into the prison, which represents how her life is also now a maze of prison corridors with which she must learn to deal; the ant's heroic effort to take the pieces of bread through the crack in the floor represents the strength Corrie herself must strive for in this time of fear and adversity; the package from Nollie with its longed-for colors is reminiscent of hope and light in the midst of the dark; and Corrie's writing on the cell wall that Father was released is a metaphor of being released from the burden of life and being one with God.
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