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The Hiding Place (biography)
Encyclopedia
The Hiding Place is a 1971 book on the life of Corrie ten Boom
, written by ten Boom together with John and Elizabeth Sherrill
.
The idea of a book on ten Boom's life began as John and Elizabeth Sherrill were doing research for the book God's Smuggler, about ten Boom's fellow Dutchman, Brother Andrew
. Corrie ten Boom was already in her mid-seventies when the Sherrills first heard about her. She was one of Brother Andrew's favorite traveling companions and many of his recollections were about her. In the preface to the book, the Sherrills recount:
It was later made into a film of the same name
, along with a comic book adaptation.
The title refers to both the physical hiding place where the ten Boom family secreted Jews from the Nazis, and also to the Scriptural message found in Psalm 119:114 which states, "Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word... "
and watch repair business, now run by the family's elderly father, Casper
. The business took up the ground floor of the family home (known as the Beje). Casper lived with his unmarried daughters Corrie (the narrator and a watchmaker herself) and Betsie
, who took care of the house. It seemed as if everyone in the Dutch
town of Haarlem
had shown up to the party, including Corrie's sister Nollie, her brother, Willem, and her nephews Peter and Kik. Willem, a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church
brought a Jewish man, who had just escaped from Germany
, as a guest. The man's beard had been burned off by some thugs, a grim reminder of what was happening just to the east of Holland.
In the next few chapters, Corrie talks about her childhood, her infirm but glad-hearted mother, and the three aunts who once lived in the Beje. She talks about the only man she ever loved, a young man named Karel, who ultimately married a woman from a rich family.
Eventually, both Nollie and Willem married. After the deaths of Corrie's mother and aunts, Corrie, Betsie, and their father settled down into a pleasant, domestic life. Then, in 1940, the Nazis invaded Holland.
Due to the family's strong Christian
beliefs, they felt obligated to help their Jewish friends in every way possible. The Beje soon became the center for a major anti-Nazi operation. Corrie, who had grown to think of herself as a middle-aged spinster, finds herself involved in black market operations, stealing ration cards, and eventually, hiding Jews in her own home.
Corrie suffered a moral crisis over this work; not from helping the Jews, but from what she had to do to accomplish this: lying, theft, forgery
, bribery
, and even arranging a robbery. The Dutch underground arranged for a secret room to be built in the Beje, so the Jews would have a place to hide in the event of the inevitable raid.
It was a constant struggle for Corrie to keep the Jews safe, she sacrificed her own safety and part of her own personal room to give constant safety to the Jews. Rolf, a police officer friend, trained her to be able to think clearly anytime in case the Nazis invaded her home and started to question her.
When a man asked Corrie to help his wife, who had been arrested, Corrie agreed, but with misgivings. As it turned out, the man was a spy, and the watch shop was raided. The entire ten Boom family was arrested, along with the shop employees, though the Jews managed to hide themselves in the secret room.
Casper was well into his eighties by this time, and a Nazi official offered to let him go, provided he made no more trouble. Casper does not agree to this, and was shipped to prison. It is later learned he died ten days later.
Corrie is sent to Scheveningen, a Dutch prison which was used by the Nazis for political prisoners, nicknamed 'Oranjehotel'--a hotel for people loyal to the House of Orange. She later learns that her sister is being held in another cell, and that, aside from her father, all other family members and friends had been released. A coded letter from Nollie revealed that the hidden Jews were safe. Corrie befriends a depressed Nazi officer, who arranges a brief meeting with her family, under the pretense of reading Casper's will. She was horrified to see how ill Willem was, as he had contracted jaundice
in prison. He would eventually die from his illness in 1946. Corrie also learned that her nephew, Kik, had been captured while working with the Dutch underground. He had been killed, though the family did not learn of this until 1953.
After four months at Scheveningen, Corrie and Betsie were transferred to Vught
, a Dutch concentration camp for political prisoners. Corrie was assigned to a factory that made radios for aircraft. The work was not hard, and the prisoner-foreman, Mr. Moorman, was kind. Betsie, whose health was starting to fail, was sent to work sewing prison uniforms.
When a counter-offensive against the Nazis seemed imminent, the prisoners were shipped by train to Germany, where they were imprisoned at Ravensbrück, a notorious women's concentration camp. The conditions there were hellish; both Corrie and Betsie were forced to perform back-breaking manual labor. It was there that Betsie's health failed and she died. Corrie was later released, due to what later proved a clerical error. Though she was forced to stay in a hospital barracks while recovering from edema
, Corrie arrived back in Holland by January 1945.
Throughout the ordeal, Corrie was amazed at her sister's faith. In every camp, the sisters used a hidden Bible
to teach their fellow prisoners about Jesus. In Ravensbrück, where there was only hatred and misery, Corrie found it hard to look to Heaven. Betsie, however, showed a universal love for everyone. Not only for the prisoners, but, amazingly for the Nazis. Instead of feeling anger, she pitied the Germans, sorrowful that they were so blinded by hatred. She yearned to show them the love of Christ, but died before the war was over.
The book also emphasizes the "governance of God in all things". For example, Corrie's sister Betsie found many fleas in Ravensbruck and tells Corrie they must thank God for them because they are to thank Him in "all circumstances". Later Corrie realizes that these fleas keep the guards at a far distance, allowing the sisters to conduct forbidden Bible study meetings. Corrie, formerly skeptical, learns that Betsie was right.(p. 209).
Miracles are strongly inferred in the text. At one point, Corrie gets out of bed in the night and so avoids being hit by shrapnel (p. 62). When Corrie prays, an elderly asthmatic Jew in hiding stops wheezing (pp. 122–123). In Ravensbruck, a Bible gets smuggled past an inspection (p. 180), and a medicinal bottle keeps producing drops longer than it should (p. 189). Betsie’s body looks restored to health after death (p. 219). There are also a number of supernatural visions included in the story: Corrie has a vision of herself and some friends and relatives being taken away from the town square, before this really happens (p. 63); in Ravensbruck, Betsie has a vision of a large mansion being used to rehabilitate released prisoners, and of a camp being painted up and decorated, which come to pass through seeming coincidences after the war. Betsie also correctly predicts Corrie’s release date.
Jews are considered to be particularly holy; Corrie’s father says that he feels sorry for the Germans because "they have touched the apple of God’s eye" (p. 69).
Corrie ten Boom
Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom was a Dutch Christian, who with her father and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Her family was arrested due to an informant in 1944, and her father died 10 days later at Scheveningen prison where they were first held...
, written by ten Boom together with John and Elizabeth Sherrill
John and Elizabeth Sherrill
John L. Sherrill and Elizabeth Sherrill are Christian writers. They have co-authored a number of best-selling books, including:*God's Smuggler with Brother Andrew...
.
The idea of a book on ten Boom's life began as John and Elizabeth Sherrill were doing research for the book God's Smuggler, about ten Boom's fellow Dutchman, Brother Andrew
Brother Andrew
Andrew van der Bijl , known in English-speaking countries as Brother Andrew, is a Christian missionary famous for his exploits smuggling Bibles to communist countries in the height of the Cold War, a feat that has earned him the nickname "God's smuggler"...
. Corrie ten Boom was already in her mid-seventies when the Sherrills first heard about her. She was one of Brother Andrew's favorite traveling companions and many of his recollections were about her. In the preface to the book, the Sherrills recount:
- ...his [Brother Andrew's] fascinating stories about her in Vietnam, where she had earned that most honorable title "Double-old Grandmother" - and in a dozen other Communist countries - came to mind so often that we finally had to hold up her hands to stop his flow of reminiscence. "We could never fit her into the book," we said. "She sounds like a book in herself." It's the sort of thing you say. Not meaning anything.
It was later made into a film of the same name
The Hiding Place (film)
The Hiding Place is a 1975 film based on the autobiographical book of the same name by Corrie ten Boom recounting her and her family's experiences before and during their imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust in World War II.-Plot:...
, along with a comic book adaptation.
The title refers to both the physical hiding place where the ten Boom family secreted Jews from the Nazis, and also to the Scriptural message found in Psalm 119:114 which states, "Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word... "
Plot
The book opens in 1937, with the ten Booms family celebrating the 100th anniversary of the family watchWatch
A watch is a small timepiece, typically worn either on the wrist or attached on a chain and carried in a pocket, with wristwatches being the most common type of watch used today. They evolved in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appeared in the 15th century. The first watches were...
and watch repair business, now run by the family's elderly father, Casper
Casper ten Boom
Casper ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who helped many Jews and resisters escape the Nazis during the Holocaust of World War II. He is the father of Betsie and Corrie ten Boom, who also aided the Jews and were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp; only Corrie survived...
. The business took up the ground floor of the family home (known as the Beje). Casper lived with his unmarried daughters Corrie (the narrator and a watchmaker herself) and Betsie
Betsie ten Boom
Elisabeth ten Boom was one of the leading characters in The Hiding Place, a book written by her sister Corrie ten Boom about the family's experiences during World War II. Nicknamed Betsie, she suffered with pernicious anemia from her birth...
, who took care of the house. It seemed as if everyone in the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
town of Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
had shown up to the party, including Corrie's sister Nollie, her brother, Willem, and her nephews Peter and Kik. Willem, a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...
brought a Jewish man, who had just escaped from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, as a guest. The man's beard had been burned off by some thugs, a grim reminder of what was happening just to the east of Holland.
In the next few chapters, Corrie talks about her childhood, her infirm but glad-hearted mother, and the three aunts who once lived in the Beje. She talks about the only man she ever loved, a young man named Karel, who ultimately married a woman from a rich family.
Eventually, both Nollie and Willem married. After the deaths of Corrie's mother and aunts, Corrie, Betsie, and their father settled down into a pleasant, domestic life. Then, in 1940, the Nazis invaded Holland.
Due to the family's strong Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
beliefs, they felt obligated to help their Jewish friends in every way possible. The Beje soon became the center for a major anti-Nazi operation. Corrie, who had grown to think of herself as a middle-aged spinster, finds herself involved in black market operations, stealing ration cards, and eventually, hiding Jews in her own home.
Corrie suffered a moral crisis over this work; not from helping the Jews, but from what she had to do to accomplish this: lying, theft, forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
, bribery
Bribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
, and even arranging a robbery. The Dutch underground arranged for a secret room to be built in the Beje, so the Jews would have a place to hide in the event of the inevitable raid.
It was a constant struggle for Corrie to keep the Jews safe, she sacrificed her own safety and part of her own personal room to give constant safety to the Jews. Rolf, a police officer friend, trained her to be able to think clearly anytime in case the Nazis invaded her home and started to question her.
When a man asked Corrie to help his wife, who had been arrested, Corrie agreed, but with misgivings. As it turned out, the man was a spy, and the watch shop was raided. The entire ten Boom family was arrested, along with the shop employees, though the Jews managed to hide themselves in the secret room.
Casper was well into his eighties by this time, and a Nazi official offered to let him go, provided he made no more trouble. Casper does not agree to this, and was shipped to prison. It is later learned he died ten days later.
Corrie is sent to Scheveningen, a Dutch prison which was used by the Nazis for political prisoners, nicknamed 'Oranjehotel'--a hotel for people loyal to the House of Orange. She later learns that her sister is being held in another cell, and that, aside from her father, all other family members and friends had been released. A coded letter from Nollie revealed that the hidden Jews were safe. Corrie befriends a depressed Nazi officer, who arranges a brief meeting with her family, under the pretense of reading Casper's will. She was horrified to see how ill Willem was, as he had contracted jaundice
Jaundice
Jaundice is a yellowish pigmentation of the skin, the conjunctival membranes over the sclerae , and other mucous membranes caused by hyperbilirubinemia . This hyperbilirubinemia subsequently causes increased levels of bilirubin in the extracellular fluid...
in prison. He would eventually die from his illness in 1946. Corrie also learned that her nephew, Kik, had been captured while working with the Dutch underground. He had been killed, though the family did not learn of this until 1953.
After four months at Scheveningen, Corrie and Betsie were transferred to Vught
Vught
Vught is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands. It is a town where lots of commuters live and has recently been named "Best place to live" by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.-Politics:...
, a Dutch concentration camp for political prisoners. Corrie was assigned to a factory that made radios for aircraft. The work was not hard, and the prisoner-foreman, Mr. Moorman, was kind. Betsie, whose health was starting to fail, was sent to work sewing prison uniforms.
When a counter-offensive against the Nazis seemed imminent, the prisoners were shipped by train to Germany, where they were imprisoned at Ravensbrück, a notorious women's concentration camp. The conditions there were hellish; both Corrie and Betsie were forced to perform back-breaking manual labor. It was there that Betsie's health failed and she died. Corrie was later released, due to what later proved a clerical error. Though she was forced to stay in a hospital barracks while recovering from edema
Edema
Edema or oedema ; both words from the Greek , oídēma "swelling"), formerly known as dropsy or hydropsy, is an abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin or in one or more cavities of the body that produces swelling...
, Corrie arrived back in Holland by January 1945.
Throughout the ordeal, Corrie was amazed at her sister's faith. In every camp, the sisters used a hidden Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
to teach their fellow prisoners about Jesus. In Ravensbrück, where there was only hatred and misery, Corrie found it hard to look to Heaven. Betsie, however, showed a universal love for everyone. Not only for the prisoners, but, amazingly for the Nazis. Instead of feeling anger, she pitied the Germans, sorrowful that they were so blinded by hatred. She yearned to show them the love of Christ, but died before the war was over.
Religious themes
The book details the moral dilemmas faced by Corrie and her religious family. While she lies and deals in stolen ration cards to protect Jews, her sister Nollie maintains a strict honesty which results in her revealing the presence of a Jew, who is arrested. Corrie is appalled, but the Jew gets out of prison after a Dutch resistance raid breaks into the prison and releases her (p. 107). Corrie is also asked by a police chief if she can provide help with killing a Dutch Nazi informer; Corrie suggests praying instead, but the incident is not resolved. (p. 116-117).The book also emphasizes the "governance of God in all things". For example, Corrie's sister Betsie found many fleas in Ravensbruck and tells Corrie they must thank God for them because they are to thank Him in "all circumstances". Later Corrie realizes that these fleas keep the guards at a far distance, allowing the sisters to conduct forbidden Bible study meetings. Corrie, formerly skeptical, learns that Betsie was right.(p. 209).
Miracles are strongly inferred in the text. At one point, Corrie gets out of bed in the night and so avoids being hit by shrapnel (p. 62). When Corrie prays, an elderly asthmatic Jew in hiding stops wheezing (pp. 122–123). In Ravensbruck, a Bible gets smuggled past an inspection (p. 180), and a medicinal bottle keeps producing drops longer than it should (p. 189). Betsie’s body looks restored to health after death (p. 219). There are also a number of supernatural visions included in the story: Corrie has a vision of herself and some friends and relatives being taken away from the town square, before this really happens (p. 63); in Ravensbruck, Betsie has a vision of a large mansion being used to rehabilitate released prisoners, and of a camp being painted up and decorated, which come to pass through seeming coincidences after the war. Betsie also correctly predicts Corrie’s release date.
Jews are considered to be particularly holy; Corrie’s father says that he feels sorry for the Germans because "they have touched the apple of God’s eye" (p. 69).