The Hiding Place

by Corrie ten Boom

This is a story of love and courage, passion, brutality and heartbreak. The ten Boom family were devoted Christians. They lived in Haarlem in the Netherlands and during the Second World War their home, which had always been an open house, was almost taken over and used as a safe house for Jews and members of the Dutch Resistance. They risked their lives and it is thought that they saved the lives of over 800 Jewish people by hiding them in a secret room – the Hiding Place – in the family home. Corrie ten Boom looked after the secret guests.

But someone betrayed them to the Gestapo and their home was raided. However, despite an intensive search, the hiding place wasn’t discovered and the seven people there weren’t detected. They stayed cooped up for over 48 hours until some of the Dutch Resistance freed them.

The whole family was arrested. Casper, Corrie’s father died at the age of 84 after only ten days in prison, Corrie’s nephew Christiaan was sent to Belsen and never returned, her brother Willem aged 60 contracted Spinal TB and died shortly after the war, and Corrie and her sister Betsie spent almost a year doing hard labour in three different prisons, the last one being the infamous Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Here’s an extract, to give you a flavour of the conditions in the camp...

 

'Betsie and I were put to work levelling some rough ground just inside the camp wall. It was back-breaking work. The biggest problem was Betsie’s strength – she was 59,  and very weak.

‘Schneller!’ a guard screamed at her. ‘Can’t you go any faster? Loafer! Lazy swine!’

The guard snatched Betsie’s shovel and ran from group to group exhibiting the handful of dirt that was all Betsie was able to lift.

‘Look what Madame Baroness is carrying! Surely she will over-exert herself!’

 

‘The guard’s plump face went crimson, ‘I’ll decide who’s to stop!’ and snatching the leather crop from her belt she slashed Betsie across the chest and neck. 'Without knowing what I was doing I seized my shovel and rushed at her, but Betsie stepped in from of me before anyone had seen. ‘Corrie,’ she pleaded dragging my arm to my side. ‘Keep working!’

 

Betsie died a short time later and Corrie ten Boom talks us through her struggle with forgiveness. Years later she was speaking in a church in Munich when she met one of her jailors...

 

‘He came up to me as the church was emptying,’ she writes. ‘How grateful I am for your message Fraulein. To think that he has washed my sins away!’

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; Lord Jesus, I prayed...

 

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