Who is Corrie Ten Boom: Hiding Jews and Time in a Ravensbruck Concentration Camp

Corrie ten Boom was the youngest of 4 children born in April on the 15th in 1892. She was the daughter of watchmaker and watch repairman, Casper ten Boom, a man who was loved by all who knew him, it seemed.

Corrie ten Boom was the youngest of four children. Betsie, whose birth name was Elisabeth, was born with pernicious anemia, but this did not stop her from being a delightful and creative woman who brought sunshine into the darkest of places, as you will learn if you read or view "The Hiding Place". Corrie balanced her sister by being the more practical one, both with their own unique gifts and talents. There was another sister named Nollie, and a brother, Willem. All were born in the Netherlands. Corrie's mother was 63 when she died from complications of a stroke. You learn more about her in "The Hiding Place" as well.

The family lived above and about their father's watch repair shop on Barteljorisstraat 19 in Haarlem. They lived in somewhat crowded conditions...3 of Corrie's aunts on her mother's side lived with them.

Willem, Corrie's older brother, was the first in the family to become concerned about what the Nazis were doing and would do to Dutch in Holland, and even wrote his dissertation at the theological college he attended on racial anti-semetism. Corrie's sister, Nollie, was a school teacher. She married a teacher and had 6 children. Betsie never married, and neither did Corrie, though in "The Hiding Place" she shares the story of her relationship with a man who loved her, but...well, read the book for the details:-)

Corrie helped her father in the watchmaking and watch repair business. Her eye for detail helped with this, and with managing the books. This ability of hers would be an asset to her when she was in the concentration camps later in life.

Corrie loved and served the Lord, and was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. This is information I gathered from reading and listening to "The Hiding Place".

As Willem, Corrie's brother, predicted, the Nazis came into Holland and did what they are best known for, began to take the Jews from their homes and businesses to concentration camps. They took the Jews as well as those who helped them by hiding them, or by helping them get out of the country.

"The Hiding Place" shares how Corrie and her family became involved in the hiding of the Jews in their home. They knew from their Christian faith that these were special people to God, His chosen people, which added to their passion to help, though I'm sure they would have done so for anyone...and in fact, did. Corries love for people in need is seen throughout her book, from caring for the ill to her work with the handicapped.

It is a remarkable story, how the circumstances came together for Corrie and her family to hide Jews in their home. How the way was made for her to get enough ration cards to feed the people they were hiding. How they carefully planned just what they would do if the Nazi SS were to come to the door...they did drills to prepare for such occasions. In addition to Jews, they helped others who were part of the resistance movement against Nazi occupation of Holland. I don't want to spoil the story with more details. It is best to take it in as Corrie tells it.

Corrie describes in her book her bedroom, walking up narrow steps to get to the room, the small window she looked out at not such a wonderful view, but a view nevertheless. It is her room that became the "hiding place" because it was the top floor of the home, not easily accessible.

The room couldn't be used as it was, some construction had to be done to make it un-noticeable. With the help of a design by a member of the resistance, and by sneaking in materials in the most unusual ways, they were able to build a false wall, and put in a ventilation system so that when crowded in the cramped room, the refugees would be able to breath. A cupboard hid the entrance to the room...a sliding panel was opened and the people had to crawl to the room. Since everyone was scattered throughout the house during the day, out in the open, a way to warn the people that the Nazis were at the door or near had to be arranged. This was done with a buzzer. It was this buzzer that sent 6 refugees to the hidden room when the ten Boom home was raided, and the ten Booms were removed...what happened to those refugees? You'll have to read the book or view the movie to find out...though I do think there was a bit more detail in the book.

As you read the following about Ravensbruck, and look at the statistics of those who survived and were released at the end of Nazi occupation of European nations, including Holland, you will realize what a miracle it was that Corrie Ten Boom was among the survivors.

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Much of the following information is not in Corrie ten Boom's book.

Ravensbruck, which is also spelled Ravensbrueck at times, was a World War II concentration camp, unique in that it wasn't common to have concentration camps devoted entirely to women. It was located in northern Germany near the village of Ravensbruck.

SS leader Heinrich Himmler oversaw the construction of the camp at the end of 1938. It opened in 1939, and a men's camp was built next to it in 1941.

In the approximately 6 years of operation, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbruck camp system. Less than 1/3 of these woman survived. Polish women made up a majority of the inmates, though there were women representing all German occupied European countries in Ravensbruck.

Children were also present in the prison camp, arriving with their mothers who were Jews and sometimes Gypsies. Some were born to women who were imprisoned while pregnant. At the beginning there were few children, but as time went on almost every nation in Europe that Germany occupied had children confined in the prison camp.

According to Wikipedia, "Among the thousands executed by the Germans at Ravensbruck were four female members of the British WWII organization Special Operations Executive: Denise Bloch, Cecily Lefort, Lilian Rolfe and Violette Szabo. Other victims included the Roman Catholic nun Elise Rivet, Elisabeth de Rothschild (the only member of the Rothschild family to die in the holocaust), Russian Orthodox nun St. Maria Skobtsova, the 25-year-old French Princess Anne de Bauffremont-Courtenay and Olga Benario, wife of the Brazilian Communist leader Luis Carlos Prestes. The largest group of executed women at the Ravensbruck camp was composed of 200 young Polish patriots who were members of the Home Army.

"Among the survivors of the Ravensbruck camp was Christian author and speaker Corrie ten Boom. Corrie ten Boom and her family were arrested by the Nazis for harboring Jews in their home in Haarlem, the Netherlands. The ordeal of Corrie and her sister Betsie ten Boom in the camp is documented in her book The Hiding Place which was eventually produced as a motion picture. Countess Karolina Lanckoronska, a Polish art historian and author of Michelangelo in Ravensbruck also was imprisoned in the camp from 1943-1945."

You may wonder whether Corrie Ten Boom was a Jew. Though her father, Casper Ten Boom, was known to wear a Jewish Star or Star of David to show his love and concern for the Jewish people that he and his family, including Corrie Ten Boom and Betsie Ten Boom, his daughters, hid and helped, the family was not Jewish. They were Dutch and members of the Dutch Reformed church.