The Hiding Place: The Blue Sweater Summary & Analysis

Corrie is not allowed to visit the hospital, but a few days later she sneaks in the back entrance. Hoisting herself through the window, she smells the rank toilets and sees, to her shock, a dozen naked bodies stacked against the wall. She dashes through the hospital until she finds Betsie sitting up in a cot—she’s still thin and hasn’t seen a doctor, but has regained some strength through rest.

Three days later—still without any medical attention—Betsie’s fever subsides and she returns to Barracks 28. Fortunately, she’s assigned to a crew of women who knit socks for German soldiers, meaning she can work inside. Every day she finishes her sock quota before noon and spends the rest of the day reading to the other women from the Bible and leading prayers.

One day, Betsie is waiting for Corrie when she returns home from her day’s shift, looking pleased and excited. She’s found out that the guards are so reluctant to enter the women’s dormitory because of the swarming fleas. These vermin, which Corrie reviles, are actually the reason they are able to lead prayer services in safety.

One morning during role call, a mentally disabled girl suddenly soils herself, and a particularly vicious guard, nicknamed The Snake, starts beating her. Whispering to Betsie, Corrie wonders aloud if they can open a home after the war to help traumatized people like this. Betsie replies that she prays for this every day. It’s only later that Corrie realizes that while she was speaking of the prisoners, Betsie has been thinking about the guards.

Soon after, Corrie is ordered to a medical inspection. She’s pronounced healthy enough for transfer to a munitions factory, which is considered a boon, as conditions are much better there. However, she doesn’t want to be separated from Betsie. She pleads with a doctor, who relents and gives her a pass to be fitted for eyeglasses the next morning, at exactly the same time that the transport convoy leaves.

Since Corrie’s entire work crew has been disbanded, the guards assign her to the knitting crew. She’s thankful for this, as she gets to spend all day with Betsie, praying and studying the Bible. The women become “the praying heart of the vast diseased body that was Ravensbruck,” trying to “intercede” for prisoners and even the guards.

During this time, Corrie feels that God is speaking to her about her purpose after the war. Betsie wants to have a large house where concentration camp survivors can come for rest and rehabilitation. She imagines floors of inlaid wood, a broad staircase, and luxurious gardens. Corrie is amazed to hear Betsie describe these things as if they already exist and aren’t just a product of imagination and hope.

One morning during roll call, Corrie sees hospital nurses loading patients into a truck. She’s known for a long time that the sickest people are sent to “the brick building at the foot of the great square smoke stack,” but she’s never seen it happening with her own eyes, and now she’s finally forced to understand what’s happening. She can’t believe that the nurses, some of whom treat the patients very kindly, are coolly sending them to their deaths.

As winter approaches, cold becomes a constant concern and Corrie feels “the temptation to think only of oneself” grow stronger. For example, she knows that if she wriggles into the middle of the group during roll call, she’ll be protected from the wind. To evade her guilt for forcing others to stand on the end, she comes up with many justifications, for example telling herself that she’s just acting on behalf of Betsie. She feels angry when other women take the yeast compound, which she wants to save for Betsie.

As a result, Corrie feels that her prayers have become less sincere and meaningless. However, one day she reads a story about Saint Paul, who was unable to overcome his own weaknesses until he learned to rely on God completely and realized that the “wonders and miracles that followed his ministry” all came from Christ’s personal intervention. That night, Corrie humbly confesses her feelings of self-centeredness to the prayer group, and “real joy” comes back to her prayers.

The cold is now affecting Betsie’s legs—sometimes she is too weak and stiff to walk. One day Betsie wakes up unable to move at all, and Corrie has to carry her to roll call. The next day, Corrie begs the Snake, the guard on duty, for help; after roll call, she finds that The Snake has summoned nurses to carry Corrie to the hospital, so that she doesn’t have to stand in the sick call line. In between coughs, Betsie reminds Corrie about the house they’re going to have after the war, and even tells her confusedly about a concentration camp where “we’re in charge.”

Corrie walks with Betsie to the hospital. Betsie urgently says that Corrie must keep telling people what they have learned at Ravensbruck, “that there is no pit so deep that [God] is not deeper still.” Bewildered, Corrie asks when all of this will happen, and Betsie says that by the new year they will be out of prison.

At noon, Corrie asks the Snake for a pass and visits Betsie briefly. However, she can’t go again that day because other guards are on duty. After the evening meal, she sneaks to the hospital and looks in the window. In Betsie’s bed, she sees what looks like an ivory carving, its teeth visible through the cheeks. After a moment, she realizes that this is Betsie, already dead, and that the nurses are preparing to carry her away.

In shock, Corrie walks aimlessly away from the hospital. After a while, the girl who once brought the yeast compound runs up to her urgently and brings her back to the hospital. She shows her Betsie’s body, and Corrie sees that her sister’s face is restored to its youthful health, with “the care lines, the grief lines, the deep hollows of hunger and illness” wiped away. The nurse and the girl stand by as Corrie surveys this miracle. On her way out, she stoops to pick up the old blue sweater Betsie had been wearing, but it’s full of lice and the girl warns her away from it.