The Hiding Place

After four months in Scheveningen prison, Corrie suddenly receives word of an evacuation order. She and Betsie are loaded onto a train and brought to Vught, a concentration camp for political prisoners. Despite the increasing danger of their circumstances, Corrie and Betsie are happy to be back together after their long separation. After two weeks in one of the outer camps, Corrie and Betsie are given pink forms which they believe might be release papers. Instead, they are transferred to the main camp and put to work in labor factories. Amid these depressing circumstances, Betsie’s spirits stay high, convinced that God has called them to this place. She references the anger and brokenness of the women around them: “But what better way could there be to spend our lives? […] Corrie, if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love. We must find a way, you and I” (175). Corrie is assigned to work at a makeshift factory where they assemble relay switches for German machinery, and she finds that she is good at the work. The foreman is a sympathetic figure who chides her for doing her work too well, as he prefers to subtly sabotage the relay switches.