Amsterdam 1942

She was awakened, in the dead of night, by the sound of a stranger’s voice, quiet but intense, drifting up the stairwell from the kitchen. “Who in the world?” she thought. Fear crept from her belly to her throat.

Ana slipped out of a narrow bed, pulled a soft sweater over her nightgown, and crept to the top of the steep, narrow stairs that led from the kitchen to her sleeping loft. She strained to hear as best she could, huddling her arms around her legs.

“Why? Why? What are you telling us?” Her mother’s voice began in a whisper but rose to a soft whine, almost a cry.

Her Uncle Klaus hissed. “Shush, Karin! You’ll wake her!”

She saw three figures at the small rectangular table below. The stranger was dressed in black and faced the brother and sister across the table. He clutched a stocking cap in both hands, nervously turning it round and round.

“They are killing all the Jews in Amsterdam!”

Terror flashed through Ana. She was suddenly dizzy, sick at her stomach. Her mother dropped her head into her hands and began to sob. Gently the brother, Ana’s Uncle Klaus, stroked her mother’s hair. “What are we to do?” he asked the stranger. “Where can we go?”

Ana crawled back to her bed on her hands and knees, seeking the comfort of her covers. She lay with her eyes open, her heart pounding, hearing the voices for a few moments, then soft footsteps, and the front door closing.

Ana awakened at dawn to the smells of breakfast cooking— cereal boiling on the stove, black coffee in the pot. Her mother was stirring furiously as the girl descended the stairs, scooting as always on her bottom until she was close enough to give a little jump to the kitchen floor. She moved into her mother’s arms and saw tears streaming silently down her face. “It will be okay, Mama! Don’t cry!” Then she moved quickly through the dining room, into the sitting room that smelled of her uncle’s pipe, and up a narrow steep stair to the hallway above. From that hallway opened three doors, and she took the one into the wet room—a dank skinny room covered floor to ceiling with gray tiles—small ones on the wall and larger ones on the floor. A water tank was mounted above the toilet and from the base of it hung a pull chain with a wooden knob.

From wet room to her mother’s bedroom, Ana pursued the morning ritual of rifling through bureau drawers for clean clothes to wear to school. Her loft afforded no room for a bureau or clothes storage. The bed there in fact had no frame but consisted of a mattress resting on the floor. You could stand upright in the loft, but only beside the high window that looked out from the front of the house to the street. She loved the narrow seat that ran the length of that window, and from that perch she did most of her homework during the winter months.

Now she was back to the kitchen with her hairbrush, knowing that her mom would tame her curly hair so she could be presentable for the day. Her mom wove a ribbon through her hair, then turned Ana’s face to hers and spoke intently: “I am going to get papers for you today to go to your uncle in America. It is no longer safe for us here in Amsterdam. I hope to go with you if I can.”

She kissed Ana’s forehead and her cheek and held her closely for a moment. “Now off to school! Be ready to get your things together when you get home this afternoon.” But the house was locked when Ana returned from school, and she was taken in by a neighbor. Uncle Klaus came for her as darkness fell, and with him was her father.

Ana’s father and mother no longer lived together. He had grown weary of Mama’s arguing and nagging and had taken a room across town. He came on Saturday mornings with money for Mama and a small allowance for Ana—ice cream money, he said, so she could buy treats on the way home from school. She would run to the door, eager to see her dad, but Mother was so angry that she would not speak to him.

“Where is Mama?” Ana cried; her father simply said, “I will stay with you now.” He built a fire in the stove and boiled potatoes and cabbage for supper. The next morning it was her dad who cooked the oatmeal and helped her brush the tangles from her hair.

On the second morning with her dad, as Ana stood ready to leave for school, she began to weep. “Papa, I am so afraid!”

He smiled into her eyes, and with quiet steadiness he said to her: “Be very brave, my beautiful little flower. There is something beyond the madness we see here in the earth! There is a God! Everything will be all right!”

That morning at almost 10:30 there was a sudden racket in the hallway of the school. Commands were being shouted! Ana’s heart began a furious beating as the door of the classroom flew open. One Nazi soldier marched to the front of the room, one to the back. “You will line up in the hall!” shouted the soldier. “Stand and throw your books to the floor!”

The trembling children stared at the men. “Throw your books to the floor!” shouted the soldier again, and with a motion of his arm, pushed everything off the teacher’s desk, making a terrible noise. “Throw your books to the floor!”

The children had been carefully trained to treat their books like pure treasure, but with hands shaking, they obeyed. Books began clattering to the floor.

“Into the hall!”

Lines of terrified children were soon moving from the school into the back of a truck in which other children sat huddled on the floor. The doors were slammed shut and the vehicle lurched forward. Within the next few hours, they visited more schools and then moved on to day care centers for the elderly. Men and women shuffled in, as soldiers forced the children to push further and further against the back wall. The doors slammed one last time. Ana found herself pressed against others so tightly that it was painful. She longed in vain to find her best girlfriend.

As the truck lumbered toward its destination, the human cargo trapped inside was immobilized for lack of space and oxygen. There was moaning and gasping; the sheer panic was made even worse by complete darkness. Some urinated and defecated on themselves. Some lost consciousness. Several of the elderly died as did two of the children. Hours passed as the mass of humans heaved and sighed. They stopped a couple of times, but the doors were not opened. Ana seemed to drift in and out of awareness, dreaming sometimes of her father—seeing his face, hearing his voice: “There is a God! Everything will be all right.” Then she would awaken and find herself with a desperate headache, her arms in pain and her feet numb.

Once again, the truck stopped. It backed up and turned around. Voices could be heard outside, and then—the back doors swung open and cold air rushed over everyone! People gasped eagerly, filling their lungs in desperate relief, then stumbled forward to get outside. Here was the clearest memory of all for Ana:

Stars blanketed the night sky. The gentleness of a breeze on her face seemed sublime and joyfully, Ana rubbed her aching limbs. Men formed a circle on the grass, facing outward so the women could urinate. Women then formed a circle for the men.

Ana saw soldiers gather up the bodies of those who had died on the journey and toss them to one side into a pile. She remembers that an old man slipped his watch from a vest pocket, and she saw the chain glisten. Someone asked him, “How long were we in the truck?” and he answered, “Eight hours.”

Then she saw the lights of a compound below, down a hillside. The crowd was directed down the hill in a line that was about ten people wide. Ana breathed the wondrous air, joyfully glad of the freedom to stand clear of the others and move freely. She was flooded with an exhilarating sense of relief.

The line milled about, slowly inching toward what appeared to be a factory. Ana saw tall chimneys and smelled an acrid smoke that streamed upwards into the sky. Light appeared in the eastern sky as a long bright line across the horizon.

Then she saw that it would soon be her time to enter a wide and brightly lit doorway into the building. Joy was displaced once again by terror. A soldier stood at each side of the entrance. She could see a desk inside and a woman sitting there who spoke to individuals as they moved forward. When Ana’s turn came to speak to this woman, the girl began shaking violently: What is your name? Your age? The name of your parents? Where were you born?

Then she was directed to the right into a room filled with women and girls. “We are going to the showers. Remove your clothes!” The naked women moved slowly down another hallway and as they entered a large, open room, small pieces of soap were distributed. She heard a soldier shout: “Halt!” A door was closed, a mist began to rain down on everyone and it felt divine to Ana, who was almost unbearably thirsty. She turned her face upward to receive the moisture—and blacked out.

Her consciousness shifted now to something lovely. Ana found herself outside the brick building. She saw smoke streaming from the tall chimneys. A Being was standing above the scene, high in the sky, with His arms outstretched and He appeared as pure light. She no longer felt pain or fear of any kind. She knew that the body she thought of as Ana was in the heap of bodies on the floor of that “shower room” below. She saw souls streaming upward, and experienced indescribable freedom and joy. She found herself moving irresistibly into the love that emanated from the open arms of the Light Being.

Suddenly she found herself standing with her mom and dad and they were beaming love on her. What total happiness! There was no trace of anger or misunderstanding between the two of them! But as they stood there smiling at her in absolute peace, she became aware of a man standing nearby. Was He an angel?

She turned to Him, knowing that He had come to usher her into another body. “No!” Her thoughts went out to him, imploring and urgent. “I do not want to return! I want to stay here with my parents!”

He smiled at her. “We have planned the next part of your journey, you and I. You helped create that plan.”

“I do not want to return,” she cried! “Please, no!”

“Let me show you the faces of those who will be blessed if you will accept this experience,” He said.

And she saw the faces--so many! Hundreds? Thousands perhaps? This loving Friend knew exactly how to get her to change her mind. “You will be greatly helped and each of the individuals you see here will be helped. It will be difficult, but it is an important undertaking. And yet the choice is yours, Beloved.”

Comprehending unspeakable love in His voice and eyes, as well as the utterly complete freedom He gave to her to refuse, Ana found it impossible to say no to this man. This Light Man, acting as her personal friend and escort, then sped away with her into a different dimension and watched with profound compassion as her spirit entered the body of a tiny baby girl, in utero, who waited to be born.

And thus, Martha Agnes arrived in America in the month of March 1942.