Outside Reading #6

In the last part of my book Corrie Ten Boom and her sister, Betsie, had to switch to a new camp. The reason the Germans needed to move there prisoners was because the front was approaching the camp. The new camp that Corrie and her sister were sent to is Ravensbruck. The conditions at Ravensbruck are almost the same as before. They are harsh with fleas in almost every one's bed and nine people are sharing a bed that was originally designed for four people. In all there was about 1400 people per room. A quote that shows some of these conditions is, "Fleas!" I cried, "Betsie, the place is swarming with them" (197 Ten Boom)! When living at this camp the guards forced the prisoners to perform intense labor. An example is "The work at Siemens, however, was sheer misery. Betsie and I had to push a heavy handcart to a railroad siding where we unloaded large metal plates from a boxcar and wheeled them to a receiving gate at the factory" (200 Ten Boom). Also when at this new camp Betsie gets extremely sick. She reaches a fever of 104 and goes to the hospital. She apparently got no medical treatment when there. Although she felt much better being someplace warm and having to do no work. When she gets realesed her illness returns. It starts to take a big hit on her physical state and she ends up dieing at the concentration camp. "For there lay Betsie, her eyes closed as if in sleep, hr face full and young" (219 Ten Boom).

Outside Reading #5

For this outside reading I read some more pages from my outside reading book called The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. In this section the book takes a dramatic turn and it is not for the better. The Germans caught them and bring them to a jail. There the father of Corrie Ten Boom dies shortly after being locked up. The rules at this prison are very harsh. Food is very little and comes usually as bread and some form of oatmeal in the morning. Corrie gets brought to solitary confinement and the quote, "solitary prisoners are not permitted to talk! If you say another word to one of the work-duty prisoners it will be kalte kost for the duration of your sentence" (149 Ten Boom). This is just one example of the restrictions put on the prisoners. While in prison the prisoners will go see a judge or somebody to judge your actions. Corrie gets a man named Lieutenant Rahms. He is a very nice man who takes great interest in the Bible when Corrie starts explaining it to him. Eventually conditions of the prison are changing and the Germans are forced to move the prisoners. They load the prisoners onto a bus and move them to a concentration camp. Once there Corrie and her sister get a pink slip and a fellow prisoner tells them that they will be free. However, after "a few days Betsie and I were called up for work assignments" (176 Ten Boom). These pink slips did not mean freedom at all just a pass to work in another camp deeper in the forest.

Outside Reading #4

In the book The Hiding Place the main character and author of the book Corrie Ten Boom have run into some problems. One problem is the officer in her city knows that she is hiding Jews in her house. The officer calls her in and discusses the issue. Then a stranger comes the Corries house about some friends who apparently are in a life and death situation. Pretty soon the police in knocking on the door and raiding the house for the Jews. Luckily the Jews made it to the secret room moments before the Germans enter. Corrie then gets beat and basically tortured for the location of the Jews she is hiding. The quote, "The man struck me hard acoss the face" (129 Ten Boom) explains the torture she is receiving for not giving up information. Another problem was Corrie couldn't get the sign out of the window to warn people part of the 'underground' that it was not safe to enter. The people were walking into a trap for being arrested. Then the group moves to the police station and a quote, "The walk took only a minute, but by the time we got inside the double doors of the police station I was shaking with cold" (133 Ten Boom) Also in the section I just read were some pictures of Corrie Ten Boom and here home, the streets and her suffering on her journey through the camps. By the pictures were some important quotes that tell her story in a couple of lines.