The Girl Across the Wire Fence: Imogen Matthews' New WW2 Historical Novel
An inspiring and unforgettable tale about how much we are willing to sacrifice to save the ones we love.
Kamp Amersfoort: a true story
Not many people know about Kamp Amersfoort, a German concentration camp in Holland, where 37,000 prisoners were kept between 1941 and 1945.
The first group to arrive were 200 political prisoners, including Communists, arrested for defying the Nazis. They came by train to Amersfoort and were transported in lorries. Others arrived on foot and forced to walk through the centre of town, under the supervision of cruel guards who had been drafted in from Dachau.
More and more prisoners streamed into the camp: men who refused to work for the Germans as a result of the Arbeitseinsatz edict as well as Jews, Romanies, criminals and people who were afilliated to Resistance groups.
They suffered a brutal regime - virtually no food or basic essentials and forced into hard labour working long days for the Germans out in the forest.
Twice a day, the prisoners were forced to line up for roll-call where they had to shout out their number in German (no one was known by their name). If they made a mistake, the guards would punish them, making them perform drills in front of the whole camp until they dropped.
The punishment the prisoners feared most was to be sent to “the Rose Garden”, not a pretty garden with sweet-smelling roses, but a concrete yard surrounded by a high barbed wire fence. Prisoners would be forced to stand for hours, even days, in freezing or blistering temperatures, without food, water or the chance to sit or lie down. Sadly, many did not survive.
Today, there is a National Memorial centre on the site of the original camp, where visitors can learn about the history and wander through the terrain, which is marked out, showing buildings, barracks and the place where the infamous Rose Garden was situated.
The first time I visited Kamp Amersfoort I picked up a book that told the story of a farmer and his young son, who were granted access by the German authorities to go into the camp daily to collect the potato peelings for their cattle. Their horse and cart was a familiar sight and eventually no one took much notice of their comings and goings. However, Jan, the young farmer’s boy, began to smuggle letters into the camp for prisoners, stuffed down his knee- high socks. He and his family led a successful smuggling operation throughout the whole time they were picking up potato peelings - and they were never once caught.
I was totally capitvated by this story, just as I had done by the story behind my Dutch wartime novels The Hidden Village and Hidden in the Shadows.
The idea for a novel seeded itself in my mind.
Two years later, including another visit to Kamp Amersfoort and a guided tour (in Dutch!), and a change of publisher (Bookouture), and my story is written, ready for publication in September 2021.
The Girl Across the Wire Fence is based on this true story of those who risked their lives to smuggle prisoners’ letters in and out of one of the largest, yet little known, concentration camps in Holland during World War Two.
The story of The Girl Across the Wire Fence
On a cold, dark day in a tiny Dutch village in 1944, Saskia and her boyfriend Frans watch as Nazi soldiers force thousands of prisoners towards Amersfoort Concentration Camp. In the desperate faces of the men and women in their loose-fitting clothing, the rumours and fear that have been spreading across Europe suddenly comes to life…
Despite being in danger themselves, when a prisoner begs Frans to send a letter to his beloved reassuring her he is alive, Frans and Saskia know that they must risk everything to help him. Although Saskia’s father’s shop has just been raided and her entire family is under threat, when Frans begins smuggling letters in and out of the camp Saskia insists she works as a messenger too.
But every letter Frans gets out of the camp puts him in even more danger.
And every reply Saskia manages to collect is a risk.
And then Saskia goes missing.
She is led beyond the wire fence and into Kamp Amersfoort.
And she is being forced to wear a yellow star…
If you liked this post please share on social media or drop me a line on the Contact Page.