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CORRIE TEN BOOM    The Watchmaker

Born: 1892
Died: 1983
Location: Haarlem, Holland

Corrie ten Boom was the younger daughter of Casper, a watchmaker in the Dutch town of Haarlem. The family attended St Bavo’s, a Dutch Reformed Church in Haarlem. In 1922 Corrie became the first woman watchmaker licensed in Holland. Corrie was involved in Christian youth work, running clubs for teenage girls, including a group for mentally handicapped young people. She headed an organisation that spread the work across Holland and into the Dutch colonies in Indonesia.

The family’s first response to Nazi anti-Semitism came in 1937 when her brother Willem had opened a home for elderly Jews fleeing from Germany. In 1940 the Nazis occupied Holland, and as the measures against the Jews increased, Corrie was drawn into helping some neighbours, arranging for them to stay at Willem’s house in Hilversum. Corrie agonised over the ethics of whether a Christian should be involved in this kind of intrigue with the Dutch Underground Movement. She finally accepted the challenge and prayed, “Lord Jesus, I offer myself for your people. In any way. Any place. Any time.”

In May 1942 the ten Boom’s took in their first Jewish fugitives and Willem was able to take them onto a safe haven after Corrie had obtained ration cards for them. Her underground contacts supplied ration cards, false identification papers and access to an official government car. It was suggested to her that she needed a secret room where her guests could hide in case of a Gestapo raid. A false room was built in Corrie’s room at the top of the house and the “Hiding Place” was created.

There were lots of comings and goings at the watchmaker’s shop, and the number of guests increased to nine, despite the fact that they only lived 100 yards from the police station. At one point, neighbours heard them having a sing-song and warned Corrie to be careful.

In February 1944 the house was raided by Gestapo officers and 2 Dutch Nazis. They searched the building for Jews, but failed to find the Hiding Place. A guard was put on the house to starve out anyone who might be hiding there. In fact there were six people in the secret room. The ten Booms were taken to Gestapo HQ in the Hague. Their father collapsed and died in hospital 10 days later. Corrie and Betsie were transferred to a prison in Scheveningen. Four days after the arrests the six occupants of the Hiding Place were rescued over the rooftops by the Resistance.

In September as the Allies advanced the sisters were transferred to Ravensbruck, the only Nazi concentration camp set up specifically for women. The conditions were horrendous. Corrie had successfully concealed a small Bible and it became the centre of a meeting each evening for worship and study. Betsie’s health faded, although her faith strengthened. She told Corrie of a vision in which the Lord had told her they would both be out of the camp by the first day of the new year. Betsie died, and 3 days later Corrie was informed of her discharge – she was released on the last day of December 1944. It was later discovered her release was due to a clerical error – all the other women her age did not survive the war.

After the war Corrie travelled extensively speaking of her experiences and sharing the gospel. In 1947 at a church in Munish she was confronted by a man whom she recognised as one of the most cruel guards at Ravensbruck. It seems that he had become a Christian and knew that God had forgiven him – but would she? After a long pause and a great struggle, she was able to respond, “I forgive you brother, with all my heart.”

In 1968 she was invited by Israel to plant a tree in the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles in Jerusalem. In the 1970’s her story was seen in cinemas worldwide in the feature film “The Hiding Place”. Corrie died aged 91 in 1983.

IN HER OWN WORDS:

“My sister’s last words to me in Ravensbruck were: ‘We must go everywhere. We must tell people that no pit is so deep that He is not deeper still. They will believe us, because we were here.”

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