THE HIDING PLACE

The Bishop's wife spoke on Sunday. Her talk was on forgiveness. Most of her words came from excerpts from this book. The title sounded familiar. I am sure I read it once in my youth or maybe I scanned the cliff notes to get by on a book report, I am not sure. I asked her if I could borrow it. I spent last night and much of today reading it. I was so touched. I must have it for my bookshelf. I loved every word. I always have been weirdly obsessed with books about World War II and the Nazi concentration camps, but this is the first one I read that lifted me as I turned the pages. For those of you who haven't read it I highly recommend it. I will give you a little piece for your pallet to mull over.

"Corrie, do you remember, the day we were arrested, a man came to the shop? You were sick and I had to wake you up."
I remembered very well. Remembered the strange roving eyes, the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach that was more than fever.
"Apparently everyone in Ermelo knew him. he worked with the Gestapo from the first day of occupation...
Flames of fire seemed to leap around that name in my heart. I thought of Father's final hours, alone and confused, in a hospital corridor. Of the underground work so abruptly halted. I thought of Mary Itallie arrested while walking down a street. And I knew that if Jan Vogel stood in front of me now I could kill him.
Betsie drew the little cloth bag from beneath her overalls and held it out to me, but I shook my head. ....
"You lead the prayers tonight, Betsie. I have a headache."
More than a headache. All of me ached with the violence of my feeling about the man who had done us so much harm. That night I did not sleep and the next day at my bench scarcely heard the conversation around me. By the end of the week I had worked myself into such a sickness of body and spirit that Mr. Moorman stopped at my bench and aske if something were wrong.
"Wrong? Yes, somethings wrong!" And I plunged into an account of that morning. I was only too eager to tell Mr. Moorman and all Holland how Jan Vogel had betrayed his country.
What puzzled me all this time was Betsie. She had suffered everything I had and yet she seemed to carry no burden of rage. "Betsie!" I hissed one dark night when I knew that my restless tossing must be keeping her awake. Three of us now shared this single cot as the crowded camp daily received new arrivals. "Betsie, don't you feel anything about Jan Vogel? Doesn't it bother you?"
"Oh, yes, Corrie! Terribly!I've felt for him ever since I knew-and pray for him whenever his name comes into my mind. How dreadfully he must be suffering!"
For a long time I lay silent in the huge shadowy barracks restless with the sighs, snores, and stirring of hundreds of women. Once again I had the feeling that this sister with whom I had spent all my life belonged somehow to another order of beings. Wasn't she telling me in her gentle way that I was as guilty as Jan Vogel? Didn't' he and I stand together before an all-seeing God convicted of the same sin of murder? For I had murdered him with my heart and with my tongue.
"Lord Jesus," I whispered into the lumpy ticking of the bed, "I forgive Jan Vogel as I pray that You will forgive me. I have done him great damage. Bless him now, and his family..." That night for the first time since our betrayer had a name I slept deep and dreamlessly until the whistle summoned us to roll call.