Corrie ten Boom House, Haarlem, Netherlands

If you read my previous post about visiting the Anne Frank House and you read her diary, you may remember that many Jews in Holland escaped Nazi concentration camps and death because of resistance groups like Anne mentioned in her Diary entry of January 28, 1944. The ten Boom family were Dutch Christians who helped Jews escape Holland during WW2. So, in a sense, the ten Boom house compliments the Anne Frank’s account of Jews that remained in Holland but stayed in hiding. The Boom family was part of Holland’s underground resistance movement. They assisted Jews to escape the Holocaust, helping them to get to safe countries, but they also hid some Jews for longer periods when needed.

Corrie ten Boom, her father, Casper and sister Betsie lived in Haarlem, Holland a town 13 miles west of central Amsterdam. It is an easy 20 minute trip from Amsterdam Centraal Train Station to Haarlem, a neat little Dutch town, much more complicated to get to by bus or car because of canals and narrow roads. The round-trip by taxi or Uber might cost you 6 or 7 times as much as by the InterCity train. The ten Boom house was part watch shop and part residence, located an easy 10 minute, half-mile walk south from the Haarlem Train Station.

English tours of the Corrie ten Boom House are free and unlike the Anne Frank House are given in small groups. Reservations are needed and can be obtained on-line.

What specifically did the ten Boom family do during World War 2? And why would anyone want to read her book or see the movie?

Let me begin by saying that the family’s belief system was foundational to the saving of many lives. What is inspirational is that Corrie ten Boom shares her spiritual beliefs and wisdom throughout her book. They drove the ten Boom family to do what they did and endure the hardships imposed on them. It is a belief system each of us needs in our lives if we are to do anything that is meaningful.

I’ll share some of the family’s beliefs later, but first let me describe Haarlem and the ten Boom House. Corrie begins her account of creating a hiding place for Jews by first describing her family, mother, father and siblings, living in Haarlem, Holland. Her father is a watchmaker, like his father before him. Corrie too is a watchmaker, the first to become licensed in Holland. She has a brother in ministry who lives in a nearby town. The house is actually two houses joined together or backed-up to one another. There is a common stairway between both houses. The floors do not always match up and are three-story structures.

The first floor of the house facing west consists of the watch shop. Upstairs (the second floor) is the parlor and Betsie’s bedroom. On the third are boys’ and girls’ bedrooms. On the first floor of the rear house or house behind the watch shop and workshop room, there is a dining room and kitchen. On the second floor of that house there is Casper’s bedroom and on the third floor is Corrie’s bedroom. Behind Corrie’s bedroom, there is brick wall and a small shelved closet which was constructed during the war. Between the outside wall (exterior of the house) and the newly constructed wall, there is about a 2 and a half foot deep space the width of the room with enough space to only allow 6 or 7 people to stand. The space is considerably smaller than most modern “master bedroom closets” in America. This space Corrie calls the “Hiding Place.” Obviously, it was nothing like the Secret Annex described in Anne Frank’s Diary. Its use was very different. All it had was a chamber pot at one end.

Her book gives details of how this “safe room” or “place” was built and why it is located where it is within the house. It also speaks about the freedoms Jewish and non-Jewish people of Holland lost during the occupation of Holland under Hitler’s Germany. So, needless to say, the construction of the room was a pretty clandestine project.

If you read Anne Frank, you may remember the list of freedoms lost included:

·         Jews wearing a Yellow star
·         The surrendering of bicycles
·         The banning of Jews from Trams
·         Forbidding Jews to drive vehicles
·         Books written by Jewish authors were banned
·         Requiring Jews to shop between 3 and 5 pm at designated shops
        (curfews)
·         Forbidding Jews to go to theaters, cinemas and other places of
         entertainment
·         Forbidding Jews to engage in public sports; swimming, tennis and
         hockey
·         Forbidding Jews to visit Christians
·         Requiring Jewish children to attend Jewish schools

Everyone was required to carry ID cards. In addition, the Dutch also lost radios, had rations imposed on them, and of course news was edited to promote German political and military purposes. Anyone assisting a Jew was sent to concentration camps as political prisoners. It was a time of peril for everyone.

Circumstances in Holland became oppressive and it became important to her family to save Jews from Hitler’s obsession to do away with all Jews. She and her family (Brother William, Sister Betsie and Father Casper) became part of Holland’s resistance to German occupation.

The ten Boom family assisted many Jews in escaping Holland through the underground resistance. They welcomed anyone with need at their home, and, given the times, they especially welcomed Jews. Of course, the entire ten Boom family was eventually arrested: Corrie’s father Casper, Betsie, her sister Nollie and brother Willem. At the time of the raid on their house they had six Jews living with them, who managed to make it to the safe room.

Corrie, her sister and father were sent to prison. Both her elderly father and Betsie died in prison - her father nine days after he was arrested and her sister died eight and a half months later. Corrie’s book is about how God helped her and Betsie endure Scheveningen, Vught and Ravensbruck Concentration Camps. Sometimes God gave them lice to endure their situation and at other times God put her on a potato detail. Whatever happened and regardless of how hard life was, they praised God and encouraged others. In everything they saw “bad” worked out for the good. Life was in God’s hands. She was released from prison based on a clerical error.

Corrie ten Boom tells her story in “The Hiding Place” written in 1971. The title is taken from scripture, Psalm 119.14, “You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.” and also refers to the secret place where she and her family hid Jews seeking refuge. Her book was made into a movie of the same name which was released in 1975. As a result of all this she became a notable spokesperson for Christ, speaking at many events around the world. She has written many books and is often quoted.

To quote Corrie, “God’s viewpoint is sometimes different from ours…He has given us a Book that tells us such things.” You may even wonder why you have been given something to endure, or a challenge to overcome. Corrie mentors us in this when she writes, “Our experiences are mysterious preparations for the work God gives us. They are often the key to the future.” In God, Corrie ten Boom found an enduring, caring refuge, not focused on the immediate, but for the long haul. It reminds me of what Joseph said to his brothers (Genesis 50.19).

In fact, the title her book refers to the secret place where the ten Boom family hid countless Jewish people needing help in their home, and is based on the scripture, “You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word” (Psalm 119:114). To quote her father, “I will open my door to anyone in need.”

Although her father and a sister died in prison, she was released from Ravensbruck on December 30, 1944 and even in this she learned she could not hold on to bitterness. Any bitterness about her imprisonment or loss of her father and sister would only be another prison. Instead, she saw her “vengeful thoughts as a sin” and that everyone has worth in the sight of God.  The only thing she could do when she met a former officer at Ravensbruck after the war was to forgive him, just as Christ forgives us of our sins. She has a remarkable story of survival.

You ask, “What happened to the six people who went into the “hiding place” when the ten Boom house was raided?” Well, after 47 hours, the German soldiers who remained after the raid, completely searching the house left. They were replaced by a local police detail headed by a man named “Rolf” who had worked with Corrie in the past. They found the hidden Jews alive and well and helped them to find new places to hide.

Because of her efforts to save Jews from the Holocaust, a tree was planted in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations in her honor at Yad Vashem (Holocaust Memorial in Israel) in 1968. She isn’t the only non-Jew to be honored in that way. Others, among the nearly 14,000 honored include:

·         Hermine (Miep) and Jan Augustus Gies (The Diary of a Young Girl,
         Anne Frank)
·         Oscar & Emilie Schindler (Schindler’s List, 1993 Movie)
·         Paul Gruninger (The Policeman Who Lifted the Border Barrier)
·         Monsignor Rufino Niccacci, Luigi and Trento Brizi (The Assisi Network)
·         Varian Fry (The ERC with An American in Marseille)
·         Roddie Edmonds (American POW Master Sergeant, who, to protect
        the Jews in his unit, told his German captors, “We are all Jews”)

You can read the stories of these and many more at the Yad Vashem website (http://www.yadvashem.org).

Pictured here is a carob tree planted to honor the ten Boom family in Yad Vashem.

Corrie ten Boom’s House opened as a museum in 1975, but was closed in 1977 because of too many visitors. It reopened in 1988 and remains open as a museum today. In Christian circles, she is legendary as a courageous Christian leader. In her actions, she always took the stand to respect all people and honor God. Everyone deserves respect.

I was going to the Netherlands. It was imperative I visit her house, even though I had never read The Hiding Place nor seen the movie. Because I was going, I then set about getting reservations at the museum and reading her book. Of course, knowing I would see the house gave me great reasons to pay attention to the physical details of the house where Casper, Betsie and Corrie lived.

There are other resources that might be helpful in understanding the risks and pressures of resisting evil in times of upheaval. Search them out. Read them. Watch them. Visit them. Study them.

  

It was incredible to see the ten Boom house. If you should go, look for her embroidery work and the story behind her crown.

Scripture:

Genesis 4.9 – “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Genesis 42.21 – “We (the sons of Jacob) are guilty concerning our brother
       (Joseph), in that we saw the distress of his soul…and we did not listen.”
Exodus 2:2 – “The woman conceived and bore a son (Moses), and…she hid
       him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for
       him a basket …and the child was placed among the reeds by the river
       bank….”
Leviticus 19.18 and Matthew 5.43 – “Love your neighbor just the same as
      you love yourself.” Joshua 2. “Rahab took the two spies to the roof and
      hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof.”
1 Kings 17:2 – “The word of the Lord came to Elijah, “Depart from here and
       turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith….”
1 Samuel 19:2 –Jonathan told David, ‘Saul, my father seeks to kill you. Be
      on your guard…. Stay in a secret place and hide yourself….”
Psalm 32.7 – “You are a hiding place for me; you protect me from
       trouble…”
Psalm 119:14 – “You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your
       word.”