“No, No I won’t go!” yelled twenty-year-old Maria. She was running from someone but she didn’t know who; all she knew was someone was chasing her. Then she woke up. That is how it went every night, but tonight she was awakened not by her mind but by someone pounding on her door. She got out of bed, threw on some clothing and went to answer the door.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“We have reason to believe that you have been harboring Jews and taking more ration cards for you and your family than needed.”
“I’m sorry but I know nothing of this.”
“LET US PASS.”
“I told you that I know nothing of this.”
“LET US PASS!” the Gestapo agent yelled again.
The Gestapo agents were getting really mad and they were at the point of pushing Maria away to search the house and destroy anything of value.
“If you don’t move we will pick you up and put you in the truck. We will find your family, the Jews and the extra ration cards,” said the Head Gestapo agent, trying to be very calm.
“Fine, I’ll move, but I am telling the truth. I know nothing of what you are talking about.”
When all of this happened Maria’s family was out of town and they knew nothing of what was going on at the house. Before her family left they took in no Jews. They wanted Maria to be safe when she house sat.
The Gestapo walked through the house and destroyed everything of value, even Maria’s mother’s fine china that had been given to her mother on her wedding day. When the Gestapo finished they took Maria and put her in the truck and started to drive away. As they drove away Maria looked at her house through tear-filled eyes and wondered if she will ever see her family again.
Maria was a tall, blond-haired blue- eyed twenty-year-old. She was raised in the Netherlands by her dad after her mother had died when Maria was about three years old. She had a brother named Will, and a sister named Anne. Since Maria was the baby in the family her sister acted like a mother even though they were only about three years apart.
Maria was shaken awake many hours later by the woman sitting next to her.
“Where are we? What’s going on?” asked Maria, trying to wake up.
“We stopped somewhere in Germany.”
“Sorry if I seem rude, but may I ask you name?”
“My name is Susan, may I ask yours?”
“Maria. If you don’t mind my asking how did you get arrested?”
“I was letting a Jew stay in my house for one night and one of my neighbors saw me and called the local Gestapo. What about you?”
“Well…family was accused of harboring Jews and taking extra ration cards.”
“Were you doing these things?”
“Not that I know of, but I just got back from traveling around Holland, and my family went out of town to do something, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Sei zwei ganz!” yelled a German guard.
“What did he say?
“He said ‘You two quiet.’”
“Get out of the truck quietly and stand here until you get further instructions,” said another German guard in very good Dutch.
There was some murmuring going around the truck before a guard told them to be quiet. Everyone got out of the truck and was separated by gender. The men went one way and the women the other. As they walked, some of the women said they thought they heard the word Ravensbruck mentioned among the guards. Everyone was scared for they knew that as soon as they went through the gates of Ravensbruck they probably wouldn’t come out. Ravensbruck was a famous women’s death camp the women who was with Maria were scared. They knew if they went to Ravensbruck they wouldn’t come out alive. As it turned out that was just a rumor started by one of the guards to get them all scared, and they actually went to a camp designed for men, women and children. This type of camp wasn’t the fun summer camp type, but it was a work camp.
Once they got there Maria was scared that she would not make it out alive because she was accused of a crime that she knew nothing about. She was almost positive that the guards would kill her as soon as they got a chance, but they didn’t. Once Maria had looked around at all the people, she was shocked at how skinny the people there were, but being the strong Christian she was she prayed every second she was there. She prayed against the evil that was going on in the Nazi mind, she prayed for her family, she prayed that she would get out alive, and she prayed for all the people in the camp who were unfairly judged (which was about all of them). Maria spent most of her spare time telling the women in her barracks about God and what he did in the Bible. In doing this Maria brought many people to Christ and her faith grew every day she was there.
One day when Maria was helping an elderly woman get to her barracks one of the guards, who saw this, grabbed her wrist and yanked her away, almost pulling her arm off.
“What are you doing?” asked Maria trying desperately to get away.
“You are being taken to the guard house to be put on trial for harboring Jews and taking extra ration cards.”
“I all ready told you that I have nothing to do with the Jews and the ration cards.”
“Still you need to be put on trial, and if you are found guilty you will immediately be sentenced to death.”
At this Maria started to pray hard that God would open the eyes of the Nazis who were to do her trial so they would see that she did no wrong and that they would let her go back to her family. Hopefully they would let her live her life instead of killing her. If she were killed, her family wouldn’t know that she was dead, and if they knew that she was dead they wouldn’t know where she was buried. Strings of “what ifs” started to go through Maria’s head, but she immediately asked God to stop them and put good thoughts into her head.
Maria ended up being found innocent, but she still was to stay at the camp for who knows why, for who knows how long. As Maria walked back to her barrack she breathed a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks to God for delivering her from the hands of the Nazis well… almost.
Maria was in the camp for a total of about a year and a half. She was admitted in on June 1944 and was discharged in December 1945 and heard the war was over. She was as skinny as the people that she had seen when she had first arrived. All of her family was overjoyed when they heard that she was coming home. They immediately made her favourite food for her to eat.
She later wrote in her journal about her time in the camp when she got out: I tried to go to sleep wondering if I would wake up in the morning. The pain in my stomach hurts from hunger that I couldn’t fill. I would lay awake wondering if I would make it through the night just to die in the morning. I saw friends I made in the barrack die right in front of me from hunger. I saw people go into death chambers and heard their agonizing screams as they died from poison gas, acid water or getting burned alive. Wherever I would walk I would see bodies with their bones showing lying in a tangled heap left to rot. I didn’t know when I would get freed if I will get freed at all. I heard children crying from hunger and the loss of a parent instead of laughing and playing as children should do. I knew that if I die nobody in my family would know where was I buried or when I died. I never knew what day it was or how long I’d been there with cramped beds that were meant for four to five people, not ten to thirty people, rotting bodies where ever you would go. No food or water for days at a time, and when there was food I didn’t know if I would get any. There was no soap I heard agonizing screams from dying people echoed in my ears. I hoped that I would get out of this hell on earth alive.
