Cornelia Arnolda Johanna “Corrie” ten Boom (15 April 1892 – 15 April 1983) was a Dutch watchmaker who later became a Christian author and public speaker. She helped many Jews flee the Nazis during World War II by hiding them in her home with the help of her father, Casper ten Boom, sister Betsie ten Boom, and other family members. She was taken into custody and taken to the Ravensbrück detention camp once they were apprehended. The Hiding Place, her best-known book, is a biography that tells the tale of her family’s struggles and how, while incarcerated in the concentration camp, she discovered and communicated hope in God.
Corrie ten Boom
The youngest child of jeweler and watchmaker Casper ten Boom and his wife Cornelia (often referred to as “Cor”) Johanna Arnolda, née Luitingh, whom he married in 1884, Corrie ten Boom was born in Haarlem, Netherlands, on April 15, 1892. Despite having her mother’s name, she was always referred to as Corrie. Betsie, Willem, and Nollie were the three older siblings of Corrie. Tante Bepa, Tante Jans, and Tante Anna, her three maternal aunts, shared a home with the family. The art of watchmaking captivated her father, who frequently became so absorbed in his work that he neglected to bill clients for his services.
The house Corrie called “the Beje” (pronounced bay-yay), after the Barteljorisstraat where they lived, was occupied by the Ten Boom family and was located above Casper’s watch store. Corrie was responsible for the housekeeping for the first half of her life. But after Corrie’s sister Betsie spent a long time in bed due to a cold, Corrie took over and started working in the family watch shop. She soon realized that she like the “business side” of the watch store, so she set up a system of ledgers and billings to manage the finances. To their mutual joy, Betsie handled the cleaning while Corrie maintained her position in the shop even after she recovered.
She became the first woman in the Netherlands to receive a watchmaker’s license in 1922 after completing her own training. Over the course of the following ten years, she not only worked in her father’s shop but also started a youth club for adolescent girls, offering classes in handicrafts, sewing, and the performing arts in addition to religious instruction. As Calvinist Christians in the Dutch Reformed Church, she and her family were motivated by their faith to give back to the community by providing food, housing, and financial support to people in need.
Among their core beliefs were the notions that all persons are created equal and that Jews are valuable to God. These ideas served as a strong inspiration for the altruistic rescue efforts she would later engage in.
The Hiding Place
The Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. The young club’s ban was one of its limitations. A well-dressed woman with a suitcase approached the Ten Booms in May 1942 and explained that she was a Jew, that her son had gone into hiding, that her husband had been detained months previously, and that she had lately been visited by occupation officials, which made her scared to return. She inquired as to whether the Ten Booms could assist her after learning that they had previously assisted their Jewish neighbors, the Weils. Despite the fact that the police station was only half a block away, Casper quickly agreed that she may stay with them.
His belief that the Jews were the “chosen people” led him to tell the woman, “In this household, God’s people are always welcome.” He was an avid Old Testament reader.
The Gestapo and its Dutch counterpart hunted Corrie and her sister Betsie after they welcomed Jewish refugees and resistance movement members into their home. The Dutch Resistance learned of Ten Boom’s and her sister’s refugee activities at the Beje and sent an architect to the Ten Boom residence to construct a covert hiding spot and an alert buzzer that would signal the refugees to enter as soon as possible. Thus, “The Hiding Place” (Dutch: De Schuilplaats) was built by the Ten Booms. The hidden space, which could accommodate six people, was located behind a fake wall in Corrie’s bedroom. For the residents, a ventilation system was installed.
During neighborhood security sweeps, a buzzer could be heard within the house alerting the refugees to enter the room as soon as possible. They had lots of space, but food was limited due to wartime shortages. Each non-Jewish Dutch individual was issued a ration card, which was necessary in order to receive weekly food vouchers. Ten Boom knew many Haarlem residents through her charitable work, and she recalled a family with a crippled girl whose father was a government official who was now in charge of the neighborhood ration-card office. When he asked her how many ration cards she needed one evening when she was at his house, “I opened my mouth to say, ‘Five,'” she said. “The Hiding Place” was written by Ten Boom.
“But the number that unexpectedly and astonishingly came out instead was: ‘One hundred.'” She gave cards to every Jew she encountered after he gave them to her.
Beyond collecting pilfered ration cards and providing sanctuary to Jews in her house, Ten Boom’s role in the Dutch resistance expanded. She quickly joined the Dutch underground resistance group and was in charge of a Jewish smuggling network to safe havens. Ten Boom’s actions are thought to have saved about 800 Jews in all.
Christian Martyr
After Jan Vogel, a Dutch informant, alerted the Nazis about the Ten Booms’ activities on February 28, 1944, the Nazis arrested the entire Ten Boom family at approximately 12:30 p.m. that same day. When further ration cards and Resistance materials were discovered at the house, they were transferred to Scheveningen Prison. The six individuals—a mix of resistance workers and Jews—who were concealed by the Ten Booms were never found. Following Ten Boom’s arrest, the residence was constantly monitored, but the refugees’ escape was organized by police officials who were themselves resistance members. One day while incarcerated, Ten Boom got a letter that read, “All the watches in your cabinet are safe,” indicating that the refugees had escaped and were safe.
Resistance workers moved them to other locations on the third day following the raid. In total, the Gestapo arrested over 30 people who were in the family home that day. While the majority of the 30 people they had arrested were later released, Corrie, Betsie, and their father Casper were imprisoned; Casper passed away ten days later. Corrie was first placed in solitary confinement before being brought to her first hearing three months later. During her trial, Ten Boom discussed her work with people with mental disabilities, to the derision of the Nazi lieutenant, who pointed out that the Nazis had been killing people with mental disabilities for years through their eugenics regime.
From Scheveningen, Corrie and Betsie were sent to Herzogenbusch, a political concentration camp (also called Kamp Vught), and then to Ravensbrück, a women’s labor camp in Germany, where they used a Bible they had smuggled in to hold worship services after a long day of work. Many of the prisoners there became Christians as a result of the two sisters’ teachings and examples of unwavering charity. While they were in Ravensbrück, Betsie and her sister started talking about plans to establish a post-war healing center. Betsie’s health continued to deteriorate, and she passed away on December 16, 1944, at the age of 59.
According to her statement to Corrie prior to her passing, “There is no pit so deep that He [God] is not deeper still.” Corrie was set free twelve days later. She was then informed that all of the ladies in her age group were transported to the gas chambers a week later and that her release was due to a bureaucratic error.
It was the “hunger winter” when Ten Boom went home. She continued to welcome disabled persons who were hiding out of dread of being put to death.
Corrie ten Boom Testimony
Ten Boom went back to the Netherlands after the war to establish a rehabilitation facility in Bloemendaal. In addition to housing survivors of concentration camps, the sanctuary took in unemployed Dutch people who had aided the Germans during the Occupation until 1950. After that, it opened its doors to anyone in need of care. In 1946, she went back to Germany and met and pardoned two Germans who had worked at Ravensbrück, one of whom had treated Betsie cruelly. Ten Boom proceeded to give speeches all over the world, appearing in over 60 nations. She produced a lot of books at this time.
Books by Corrie ten Boom
Ten Boom went back to the Netherlands after the war to establish a rehabilitation facility in Bloemendaal. In addition to housing survivors of concentration camps, the sanctuary took in unemployed Dutch people who had aided the Germans during the Occupation until 1950. After that, it opened its doors to anyone in need of care. In 1946, she went back to Germany and met and pardoned two Germans who had worked at Ravensbrück, one of whom had treated Betsie cruelly. Ten Boom proceeded to give speeches all over the world, appearing in over 60 nations. She produced a lot of books at this time.
Ten Boom’s best-selling novel, The Hiding Place (1971), which was adapted into a 1975 World Wide Pictures movie starring Julie Harris as Betsie and Jeannette Clift as Corrie, recounts the tale of her family members and their experiences during World War II. Corrie, now 85, moved to Placentia, California, in 1977. She had two strokes in 1978; the first left her speechless, and the second left her paralyzed. After a third stroke, she passed away on April 15, 1983, her 91st birthday. Ten Boom is laid to rest in Santa Ana, California’s Fairhaven Memorial Park.
Corrie ten Boom movie
The sequel, Return to the Hiding Place (War of Resistance), was released in the US in 2013 after first appearing in the UK in 2011. The book by Hans Poley, which provided a more comprehensive description of the circle she was a member of, served as the basis for the movie.
Honors
- On December 12, 1967, the Israeli Yad Vashem Remembrance Authority named her a Righteous Among the Nations in her honor.
- In appreciation of her efforts during the war, the Queen of the Netherlands knighted her.
- In honor of her and her family’s efforts, the Ten Boom Museum in Haarlem is dedicated to them.
- In her honor, a new women’s residence was established at King’s College in New York City.
