"Willem, did you know the Scriptures tell us to pray
family for two years. The first baby of that marriage was a little boy named Caspar, Corrie's own dear father. He would mean so much to her in later years that she would write a whole book about him, Father ten Boom — God's Man.
Fairly early on in Willem's adult life, two important events took place. They were important not only in themselves, but because they colored the whole future of the ten Boom family. Willem became affected by the preaching of Nicolaas Beck, a local revivalist who brought the Gospel to people in a fresh and simple way. As a result, Willem was made one of the founding board members of the Society for Christian Home Visitation. Many organizations sprang up at that time to spread the Gospel and care for the underprivileged.
But the second, even more significant event was sparked off by a simple conversation between Grandfather and his minister, Dominic Witteveen in 1844. Dominic came to visit Willem at his house. "Willem, did you know the Scriptures tell us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the blessing of the Jews?"
"Of course I do, Dominic. I've always loved God's ancient people. From them came not only our Bible, but our Savior as well. And are they not His chosen ones?"
Encouraged by this response, Dominic urged Willem to start a prayer fellowship amongst his friends for the Jewish people. It was quite a new venture for Christians in that era because the Jews were scattered all over the world. As yet they had no country of their own or national identity.
However, Holland had given refuge to the Jews ever since the Prince of Orange had driven out the Spanish in the seventeenth century. Amsterdam was even called "the New Jerusalem" by the many Jews who settled there.
Influenced by Isaac Da Costa, a Jew from Portugal who became a Christian, Willem was one of the founder-members of the Society for Israel. Corrie admitted, "Father often told us that love for the Jews was spoon-fed to him from his very youngest years."
This love was to last, and grow, throughout Caspar's long life. One day during the Second World War, when the Nazis had overrun Holland and all
Jews were made to wear the yellow Star of David on their clothing, Corrie and her father saw the Gestapo herding Jews on to the back of open lorries. The onlookers had no doubt that the Jews were either being taken off to be exterminated or to forced labor camps.
Corrie felt compassion for these poor people, but her father's reaction was strangely prophetic. "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye."
So a seemingly insignificant prayer meeting in a watchmaker's shop was to produce amazing results.
Exactly a hundred years later, Caspar, four of his children and one grandson were arrested because they were involved in helping to snatch Jews from the occupying German forces.
Corrie summed it up in her writing. "... for hiding the Jews, my father, my brother's son, and my sister all died in prison. My brother survived his imprisonment, but died soon afterward. Only Nollie, my older sister, and I came out alive." This love for God's chosen people, already a family tradition influencing Corrie from her earliest years, v\^as the direct reason Corrie found herself in the death camp at Ravensbruck. She vas filthy, desperately hungry and physically and emotionally exhausted.
Family History
ten Boom was born into the middle of a ^^ family of eleven children where he was M brought up with few treats and no luxuries at all. Clothes were always made by Mother and passed down in the family until they became too threadbare for further use. At the early age of twelve, young Caspar was made an apprentice in his father's shop. Six years later he left home to start a jewelry store near the Jewish sector of Amsterdam. But before that something very important happened to him.
"When I was confirmed at the age of eighteen, I had already asked Jesus to come into my heart. Before I could partake of the Lord's Supper, I had to make a public confession of my faith. Now that I had found the Lord, or rather, He had found me, I was more interested in spiritual things than before."
Not only was Caspar fully accepted by his Jewish neighbors and included in their important celebrations, he also made life-long friendships with several leaders in a Christian young-men's group he