by Cathy Gohlke
“Hannah—please. I promise I won’t badger you about anything. But this is a woman who knew your mother—a woman from Ravensbrück. I’ve talked with her. She’s one of the sisters Frau Brunner talked about—the one who’s written a book about her experiences—and she’s amazing. She’s very busy but she’s agreed to see you this afternoon before you leave—she wants to see you.”
“I don’t know, Carl.”
“Do this for yourself, Hannah.”
I didn’t know what to say. I had nothing left.
“Then do it for me. Please.”
43
HANNAH STERLING
MAY 1973
Carl loaded my suitcases into his car and drove me to a late lunch at the small café where we’d stopped for luncheon and coffee so many times. All the waiters knew me—the American woman with the funny accent.
We toasted to the future, to seeing one another in New York and Woodbine, and gave wide berth to any discussion having to do with Grandfather or forgiveness or the war. But finally, my curiosity won.
“You said this woman we’re going to meet has written a book about her experiences in Ravensbrück.”
“Ja, I’m glad you asked.” Carl grinned, pulling a slim volume from his coat pocket. “A bon voyage gift for you.” He slid it across the table.
The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill. The back made it clear that the story played out during WWII. I looked up at him. “Thank you. You’ve read it?”
“Nein, not yet. But I will. In German—” he smiled—“for ease.”
I couldn’t help smiling in response. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I hope so.” His grin widened. He threaded my fingers through his own and pulled me closer, across the table. But any romantic notion stopped short when the café’s clock cuckooed the time. “Two o’clock! We must go.”
Out the door in five minutes, we marked record time for ending a German meal.
Carl wove through steadily growing traffic just outside the city to a large church. In America I’d have called it a cathedral. “We’re going to church? I thought we were going to talk with Miss Ten Boom in her home.”
“Nein, not her home. First we hear her speak; then we go backstage to talk with her—a rare privilege.”
“She’s a celebrity?”
“I think she is. But that doesn’t matter. It matters only what she says, what she can tell you of your mother.”
“Aunt Marta told us that.”
“But she was not in Ravensbrück. Miss Ten Boom was in the camp with your mother and was friends with your grandmother. She knew them even better than Frau Brunner. And her English is wunderbar.”
We slipped into a pew about a third of the way from the front and on the far side. After a hymn and some introductions, which I really couldn’t understand, an older lady—maybe in her seventies—walked to the pulpit. Because we were off to the side, Carl summarized and whispered translations for me.
Miss Ten Boom began with the way in which her parents had raised her, and her family’s belief that the Jewish people were the apple of God’s eye, His chosen people. She told how, once the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, her family helped Jews get ration books and helped them find hiding places—in their own home and among others willing to help.
“They bought food on the black market, and some in the network forged passports and identity papers. The Ten Boom family built a secret room in Corrie’s bedroom and hid Jews there when the Gestapo came to raid them,” Carl explained.
“They sound like Mama and the Kirchmanns,” I whispered.
“Ja, I think so too. Very brave, like your mama.”
I squeezed Carl’s hand. He squeezed mine in return.
“And then one day the Gestapo came to arrest the family—the old father, Corrie, and her sister Betsie. Other family members who had helped too. Most of the Ten Boom family were taken away. Most never returned, but Corrie survived.
“She told about the family’s arrest. How the father—over eighty years old—was taken to one side and told that if he agreed to behave himself he could stay and die an old man in his bed.”
“Yes?”
Carl shook his head. “He told them, ‘If I stay, I will open my door to anyone who needs help.’ He died in prison ten days later.”
I felt the stab in my heart.
“And her sister died in the camp—but not before she’d brought the light of Jesus to Barracks 28.”
“Mama’s barracks,” I whispered. “She’s the one Frau Brunner talked about.”
“Shh. Let me listen.”
I waited, in agony. Corrie ten Boom’s expressive face, alternately smoldering and shining, told her story, even though I couldn’t understand her words. Her eyes mesmerized—sometimes cold and hard, and then wide in surprise. Sometimes indignant, then warm and growing soft . . . caring, loving, kind. Who is this woman?
Carl stopped translating, riveted to the speaker. His face told a story too—a transformation from curious to astonished to concerned, almost angry, and then to some kind of revelation. At one point tears filled his eyes. A sacred hush swept the room before Miss Ten Boom reached some kind of climax in her talk, for a collective gasp and then a sigh ran through the tensed crowd.
While a hymn was sung Carl whispered the rest of the story into my ear—as much as he could in the time. And then he hesitated.
“What is it? What else did she say?”
“I think she should tell you—when you meet her.”
“You tell me. She just told hundreds of people!”
But the hymn finished, and Carl shushed me. “We can go backstage now. She will see us.”
Carl took my hand and I followed. My knees trembled like Jell-O. To meet another person who’d been in Ravensbrück with my mother, someone who’d been close to Grandmother Kirchmann and had done all she could to help Mama so she could carry me . . . She might know things Frau Brunner or even Aunt Marta never knew.
Carl knocked on the door of the room being used for Miss Ten Boom’s dressing room.
“Come!” the voice, cheerful and warm, called us.
I’d barely entered the room when Corrie ten Boom rose, her large eyes narrowed, as if trying to see something in me that wasn’t quite visible.
Her hands reached for mine. “The miracle of Ravensbrück . . . life from the depths of hell. The image of your grandmother.” Twin tears teased the corners of her eyes.
I couldn’t stop my own tears. “I’m sorry—I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“For the miracle of grace—for the realization that you are so deeply, dearly loved that God brought you to this world for a purpose, despite the demons of hell doing their best to cast you out.”
That made me cry all the harder.
“Carl—that is your name, isn’t it?”
Carl nodded.
“Your dear friend, Carl, told me your story—that you have been searching for the truth of your mother and of your father, of your birth and family.”
“Yes.” I nodded, swiping my tears with the back of my hand.
She smiled, handing me her handkerchief.
“Oh no, I couldn’t. I don’t want to soil it.”
She pushed it into my hand, shaking her head that it was no matter. “Your mother—so young and beautiful, so brave to have helped those she did. And your grandmother—how she loved Jesus! Light shone from her as it did from my sister, Betsie.”
I breathed, trying to take in this moment, this woman who knew my mother and grandmother.
“You have a godly heritage.” She smiled again. “I see your mother found her answer. God is so good!”
“Her answer?”
“She didn’t know; she worried so who your father was. You could not look like his mother if you were not his child.”
I gulped, so grateful for this new reassurance for me, for my mother.
“The question is, Hannah, do you bear the stamp—the resemblance—of y
our heavenly Father?”
“I . . . don’t know. I hope so.” But I did know. I couldn’t feel such turmoil and be like Him.
She nodded, considering, her brow slightly furrowed. “Then you’ve forgiven your mother for hiding her past? Forgiven the man who raised you for not telling you the truth? Forgiven your grandfather his cruelty?”
My nerves tightened. I glanced accusingly at Carl. He’d certainly spilled every bean. He met my gaze and never looked away. I was the one left standing . . . condemned in my own truth.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” I lied.
She smiled, tilting her head, as if she peered inside my brain.
I moistened my lips. There was no way to frame the truth attractively. “No . . . no.” I lifted my shoulders, helpless to explain. “I forgive my mother. I wish—so much—that I could turn back the clock and talk with her, make her tell me all that happened, talk to her about my real father . . . and thank her for carrying me, for loving me enough to keep and raise me. But I don’t understand why, after my father—the man who raised me—died, she didn’t tell me.”
Miss Ten Boom shrugged too. “Perhaps she thought it was too late, or that you wouldn’t believe her. It seems she left you the clues to go in search of others who could tell you, others you might better receive this truth from.”
Not believe her? Not believe such a story from Mama? That’s possible. I always believed everything Daddy Joe told me. It’s true; I wouldn’t have believed her in a million years—not a bit of it, not if I hadn’t made the journey myself. Did you know this about me, Mama? Did you know me so well?
“And the man who raised you? He loved you, provided for you?”
“Yes, but he lied and kept me from my real father—kept Mama from going to her true husband.” I couldn’t help the rise in my voice.
Miss Ten Boom nodded. “He has much to account for. But you—do you have peace in your anger toward him?”
I swallowed. I’d always loved Daddy, thought he was my hero, my champion against Mama. How crazy and mixed up my world was! So, who am I to know right from wrong, truth from lies? But peace? I shook my head. I felt no peace.
“And your grandfather.”
I closed my eyes. “There is no way to forgive him—no way to comprehend what he did, what he’d do a thousand times over if given the same chance. I don’t understand him at all—not what he did to Mama and my real father and his family, nor what he tried to do to me to draw me into his web.”
“Selfishness is sin—ugly and dirty. You see where it leads—where it led your family. There is no way to understand the depths, the depravity, of sin.”
I nodded.
“Neither is there a way to understand forgiveness from sin. We cannot do it. It is beyond our comprehension—beyond our human ability.”
But she was speaking in the abstract. My face must have revealed my thoughts, my doubts, for she pulled me forward to a chair beside her own.
“Did you understand what I said tonight, from the platform, about when my family was arrested?”
Carl leaned forward. “I translated as best I could, but I did not translate that part of your story.”
Corrie nodded. “When my father and Betsie and I were arrested, I did not know who had reported us. But I was certain I could not forgive that person. Because of his willful actions, my father died, my sister died, so many of my family died in the camps. But when we learned who it was, do you know what my sister said?”
I waited, then shook my head.
“She said, ‘Oh, how he must be suffering! We must pray for him, Corrie.’ That was my sister. It was her first thought—to pray for the wrongdoer.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “It was not my first thought.”
I smiled, understanding.
“Once, when I was speaking in a church in Munich, in Germany—a place I’d begged the Lord not to send me—I saw a man, a former SS. It was the first time since Ravensbrück that I’d seen any of those who’d jailed us. I remembered him as if it were yesterday—the order to strip our clothes from our bodies, to stand naked before the leering guards . . . my poor Betsie’s face.
“After the service he came up to me, bowing, smiling from ear to ear, telling me how grateful he was that he’d been forgiven—that Jesus had washed his sins away!”
My breath caught, appalled at the man’s audacity and horrified that this dear woman had been made to relive that awful moment from her past, from her beloved dead sister’s past.
“Do you know what he did?” she asked.
I could not imagine.
“He reached his hand for mine. He wanted to shake my hand, this guard from Ravensbrück! I could not take his hand. I did not want to take his hand.”
I nodded.
“But I had traveled Europe, preaching forgiveness. I understood the need to forgive as Christ forgave us—and there I stood, unable to forgive this man who’d wronged me and my sister.”
I held my breath, imagining myself turning on my heel, walking away in such a moment, vowing I could do no such thing.
“And that is when I saw my sin, my angry, vengeful thoughts, roiling and boiling in all their ugliness. Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me! Help me to forgive this man!”
I could never do that.
“But I felt nothing and couldn’t lift my hand to take his. It would not move from my side. I prayed again—a silent prayer. Lord Jesus, I cannot forgive this man. Give me Your forgiveness.”
I swallowed.
“Do you know what happened? The most amazing thing—the most incredible. It began in my shoulder and traveled the length of my arm right into my hand—a current, like electricity. It passed from me to him, and with it a love in my heart for this stranger—this man who had been my enemy—that I cannot explain.”
She leaned toward me. Part of me wanted to pull away.
“Do you know what this showed me? What this means, Hannah? This is proof that Jesus does not expect us to forgive in our own strength—that the hurts in this world are not healed by us, not forgiven by us, but by His great love. Jesus said to love our enemies . . . and with that command He gives us the love to do it.”
We left Miss Ten Boom twenty minutes after meeting her. A car waited to take her to the next city on her tour, where she would again preach that evening about her experiences and God’s extraordinary power to forgive and to heal.
The question she’d asked me . . . “Do you want that healing?”
Yes, of course.
“Are you willing to surrender your anger, your desire for revenge, in order to get it?”
I’d replayed Miss Ten Boom’s question twenty times in my brain. If Daddy’s and Grandfather’s sins had been paid for by the lifeblood of Jesus, how could I ask for more? That was the question Miss Ten Boom had asked when the former guard from Ravensbrück assumed her forgiveness.
But that man had repented, had already asked forgiveness. Neither Daddy Joe nor Grandfather ever asked forgiveness—not even on their deathbeds. Didn’t that make it different?
As Carl and I drove to the airport, I knew I was leaving Berlin with a new set of hatreds and angers—no longer directed toward my mother but toward her persecutors, and mine.
It must have been the same conclusion Mama came to—that she could not forgive them, that they did not deserve it, that they’d never repented, never tried to make amends. But what had that led her to but a life of bitterness?
Miss Ten Boom had said in parting that it was one thing to believe in Jesus and another to accept the abundant life He freely offered. “The only cost to you, to me,” she’d said, “is complete surrender of our own notion of our rights and leadership—total abandonment into His love and grace.”
Mama had never surrendered that. I knew from her letters—the ones Aunt Marta gave me. I knew from the grim line of her mouth each time I pictured her—that prison cell that held her . . . the one others built. But did she hold the key and refuse to use it? Did she understand th
at freedom could have been hers—in her heart if not in her circumstances?
I didn’t want that bound-up, angry, agonized life. But the cost of surrender . . . what would that leave me? If I didn’t keep the injustice close to my heart, who would I be? It had defined my life so long . . . toward Mama, and now toward Daddy and Grandfather. I understood Mama better in that moment than I ever had. I could not—would not—risk such vulnerability. And still, there was no peace in my soul.
I checked my ticket and luggage while Carl parked the car; then we hurried through the terminal together. I kissed Carl good-bye at the gate, but was reminded of Miss Ten Boom’s inability to raise her own arm to greet the man from Ravensbrück. Carl had been my friend and confidant, the one who’d walked with me every step of this journey. I wanted to love him, did love him . . . and yet something was missing. He read the confusion, the lack of response to his passion in my face. I saw the flicker of disappointment in his eyes.
“For you, for later,” he whispered and slipped a package from his coat pocket into mine.
“What?”
“Nein—don’t open now. On the plane . . . after you leave Frankfurt.”
I hugged him one last time. “I’ll see you in a month for the meetings in Brooklyn and Woodbine.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” He smiled.
I wanted to tell him not to read more into that than I intended, but he took me in his arms and tenderly kissed me again. I tried to push him away, but he lingered, and when he finally stepped back, I didn’t want him to.
The plane taxied to the end of the runway. I’d waved to Carl, standing in the terminal, as long as I could.
It had been one thing to keep him at arm’s length, quite another to walk on without him.
Is this how you felt, Mama? Alone? Always alone with your secrets?
I didn’t want that life sentence, didn’t want to be held in a prison of my own making. I couldn’t compare it to Mama’s or to Miss Ten Boom’s, whose enemies arrested them, tortured them. My enemies were all dead, and still they haunted me, threatened to ruin my life. And there stood Carl, ready and willing to love me with all my faults and failings. He asked only that I choose freedom by choosing surrender to Christ—what we both knew would make me truly happy. Why is it so hard?
