Next, the women were counted off into groups (continued)
164. Corrie ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels' Den "exterminated" made its way around the barracks. According to the rumor, Ravensbruck was running out of food to feed all the prisoners, so it had been decided to reduce the number of prisoners in the camp by gassing the older ones. When Corrie heard this, despite her grief, she was glad Betsie had gone to be in a better place.
On December 17, 1944, three days after Betsie's death, the morning roll call went as usual, that is, until dismissal. The whistle blew, and then, "ten Boom, Cornelia, remain behind," bellowed through the loudspeaker. Corrie started to march away with the others. Even though she had heard the announcement, she had been number 66730 for so long that she hardly recognized her own name. Slowly the words sank in, and she stopped marching. They had called her by name. Names were never used in Ravensbruck. She tried to think what it could mean. What could the Nazis want with her now? Had someone reported her for visiting Betsie in the hospital? Or for holding Bible studies in the barracks? Corrie didn't know. But whatever it was, she hoped she would be able to sit down soon. In the past few weeks her legs had become so swollen and the skin was stretched so tight across them that it stung when she stood.
"Follow me," barked a guard. Corrie did her best to keep up. She followed the guard all the way to the camp administration building. Once inside, Corrie was motioned to sit on a long wooden bench with nine other prisoners. An officer was sitting
Passed Inspection
opposite them behind a large desk. He had piles of papers in front of him which he kept moving from side to side. Eventually, he looked up and called, "ten Boom, Cornelia, step up to the desk."
Corrie got painfully to her feet and shuffled over to his desk as she had been ordered.
"Birthday?" he asked. Corrie had to think hard for a moment. "April 15, 1892," she finally replied. "Good," the officer said as he pulled a large rubber stamp from the top drawer of his desk. He rubbed it on an ink pad several times and then thumped it down on the piece of paper in front of him. Then he handed the paper to Corrie and called the next name.
Corrie stepped back from the desk and stared at the paper. The rubber stamp had printed "Discharged" in red ink on the page. Could it possibly be true? After all she had been through, could she really be going home? Home to Nollie and Willem and the Beje? She looked around in wonder. Would this really be her last day in this terrible place?
"Follow me," commanded another guard, and Corrie was led into the next room. "Clothes over there. Final health check," said the guard, as she pointed to a pile of prison dresses on the floor. Corrie quickly took her clothes off and joined the group of naked women sitting at the far end of the room. They sat together and waited. Each of them held a piece of paper similar to Corrie's, but no one spoke. The women were all deep in their own thoughts. At first Corrie was thrilled to be free, but then she began to think the whole think might be a trap. Maybe they were really on their way to the gas chamber. She had heard that the Nazis played tricks like that so that prisoners would go quietly and unsuspectingly into the chamber.
"Through the door," motioned the guard. All of a sudden Corrie could not move. She was too scared. What if there was a gas chamber on the other side of the door? Corrie saw panic on some of the other prisoners' faces. But since she had no choice but to obey, slowly she stood up and walked with the other women towards the door. To her relief, on the other side was a young man in a doctor's coat. "Stand against the wall," he told the women.
The women obeyed.
"Bend over. Touch your toes," he commanded. "Now, stand up straight," he barked, and then walked along the row of women. He looked each woman up and down. "Passed," he said three times; then he stopped at Corrie. He looked down and then said flatly, "Swollen legs. Hospital."
Corrie hurried along behind a trusty. "Is it true I've been released?" she asked.
The trusty looked at her kindly and said, "Yes. If you have the paper, you are released. But they won't let you go until you are well enough."
Corrie frowned. The trusty went on, "The Nazis won't release prisoners who aren't healthy. They're scared it might look as though they didn't look after them properly."
Corrie nearly laughed out loud. She had been starved, beaten, and forced to work twelve hours a day, and every day in Ravensbruck, she had had to smell the burning bodies of women who had been gassed to death. And now they wouldn't release her because she had swollen legs! It made no sense at all.
The trusty led Corrie into the back of the hospital and spoke to the nurse. Corrie was given a top bunk against a wall. As she settled down on the bunk to think about the day's strange turn of events, she kept her legs propped up high against the wall. Swollen legs were the only thing that separated her from freedom!
Each morning Corrie got into a lineup of "released prisoners," and each morning the same thing was written on her paper: "Swollen legs, return for treatment." Corrie would return to her bunk and keep her legs elevated some more. The hospital had been a grim place when Betsie was brought to it, but now it had become a place of complete horror. A trainload of prisoners being transferred to Ravensbruck had been bombed by the Allies. Many of the women were badly hurt; some were missing arms and legs. The women screamed in agony through the night while the nurses mocked them and laughed at their pain. The bunks in the hospital were also so hopelessly overcrowded that during Corrie's first night there, four women rolled off the bunks to their death.
But Corrie decided that the women worst off in all of Ravensbruck were the women who lined up with her each morning for inspection. Like her, they knew they would be free to go if they just got well enough. But even Corrie could see some of them would never be well enough; they were yellow with jaundice or coughed up blood, a sure sign of tuberculosis. Corrie felt so sorry for them. How cruel it was for them to have freedom dangling just out of their reach.
Finally, on December 28, ten days after entering the hospital, Corrie heard the words she had been waiting to hear: "Passed inspection."
With those two words from the doctor, Corrie's whole world changed. Instead of returning to her bunk in the hospital or to Barracks 28, she was whisked through another set of doors and into a hallway. A trusty showed her into a small room where racks of recycled women's clothes hung in neat rows. "Find something that fits. Ill be back ina minute," said the trusty.
Corrie stared at the racks. Had she heard right? Did she get to choose for herself? She had been told what to do, where to sit, what to eat, and when to talk every day for the ten months she had been in prison, and now she was being told to choose for herself. She was still standing there when the trusty came back.
"Come on," said the trusty. "Let me help you." Together they found a woolen skirt, a silk blouse, a hat and coat, and a good pair of lace-up shoes. Corrie had to leave the laces of the shoes undone, as her feet were still too swollen, but she tried to walk as if her feet were normal.
"There, you look wonderful," said the trusty as she led Corrie from the room to a desk where she was handed a pen.
"Sign this," said a guard, thrusting a piece of paper in front of her on the desk.
Corrie read what was written on the paper. It was a statement in German saying that the person signing had been treated well at Ravensbruck and had never been ill, never been hungry, and never | been hurt. Her signature on the page was now all that stood between Corrie and freedom. Quickly she signed the paper.
Next she was given a slice of bread and a free train pass to get to the Dutch border. Last, a guard pulled a large manila envelope from a file cabinet and handed it to Corrie. With trembling hands, Corrie began to open the envelope. What could it possibly be? As she tore open the top of the envelope, out tumbled her mother's wedding ring, her gold watch, and the Dutch gilders she'd had in her dress pocket when the Gestapo raided the Beje. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
"Move along," said the guard, pointing towards the double doors at the end of the room. Corrie walked through them as she put on her wristwatch. She wound the watch and held it to her ear. It still ticked!
In the next room, she joined ten other women, all dressed in recycled clothes and clipping on watches, slipping on rings, and doing up necklaces. Corrie thought they looked like a bunch of ladies getting ready for church, except for one thing. They were all so thin that no matter how many clothes they had on, one could easily still see the outline of their bones.
Another guard walked in. "We are leaving," she announced as she swept through the room.
The women glanced at each other and then followed her out the door into the cold December morning. They followed her right up to the huge iron gates of Ravensbruck. The guard yelled a few words at the gatekeepers, and the gates swung open. Freedom! Is it real, or was it a trick? Corrie kept asking herself over and over as she walked through the gates, up over the rise, and down the railroad track to a small train station. As she sat at the station waiting for a train to arrive, a terrible thought struck her. She might be free, but was she any safer outside Ravensbruck than she had been inside? She was near Berlin, deep inside Germany, right in the middle of a war zone. How would she ever make it safely back to Holland?
Chapter
gi DCA Se
Out from Under the Grip train rumbled into the small station. It was a freight train, but that didn't matter to Corrie and the other women just released from Ravensbruck. They climbed into the empty boxcars. Corrie found herself sitting next to another Dutch woman, Claire Prins. As the train pulled away from the station, Corrie thought about the last time she'd ridden on a train. Eighty women to a car, no bathroom, and Betsie gasping for air. The memories flooded back, and soon tears were streaming down her face. Claire Prins, with her own memories and her own tears, put her arm around Corrie. "We are free, free at last," she said between sobs.
Corrie nodded and wiped her eyes. Betsie had been right. It was three days before New Year's Day
1945, and Corrie and Betsie, each in her own way, were free.
The train stopped many times, and as it did so, most of the other women from Ravensbruck got off to make connections. Finally, it was just Corrie and Claire alone in their boxcar. They peered out through the small holes in the sides of the car. Through them they could see the destruction of war. Hour after hour, the train chugged through burnt, barren countryside and cities inhabited by old people and women picking through the rubble of their homes. Corrie wondered what Haarlem would be like. Claire Prins, who had been sent to Ravensbruck from Holland after Corrie, told her that although southern Holland had been liberated by the Allied Forces, northern Holland was still in the grip of the Germans. The women were returning to Holland, but not a free Holland.
Finally, the train stopped one last time, and the boxcar door slid open. A man was standing by the door. "You women have to get out here. The train tracks have been blown up, and you can't go any farther by train," he said in perfect Dutch. Corrie and Claire smiled at each other; they were finally back in Holland.
Corrie and Claire climbed slowly from the boxcar and looked around. The train had stopped at a station. A sign on the platform read, "Welcome to Groningen." Groningen was in the very north of Holland. To get to Haarlem, Corrie still needed to travel across the country. She didn't know how she
Out from Under the Grip
would do it, but nothing mattered more right then than being free and away from Germany.
A young woman on the platform looked at Corrie and Claire. "Excuse me," she said, "but you might find help at the Deaconess Hospital. It's about half a mile up the road."
Corrie thanked the woman, wondering how terrible they must look if a complete stranger felt it necessary to give them directions to a hospital! Slowly and painfully the two women made their way up the street until they finally collapsed into comfortable chairs in the hospital waiting room.
Within minutes, two nurses appeared. One asked Corrie to follow her, while Claire Prins went with the other. Corrie was led into a small office overlooking a garden covered with snow. Corrie could see the outlines of trees and bushes, which looked beautiful, even with snow covering them.
"Tell me about yourself," said the nurse, picking up a clipboard. "Where are you from?"
"Haarlem," replied Corrie. The nurse broke into a smile. "I am from Haarlem, too. Did you know a Corrie ten Boom there?" inquired the nurse, and then she added, "she's probably quite a bit younger than you, I would think."
Corrie stared closely at the nurse. "Truus. Truus Benes! Yes, it is you."
"How did you know my name?" asked the nurse.
"It's me. I am Corrie ten Boom," said Corrie. "You were in my Triangle Club!"
"Tante Corrie. I don't believe it! Is it really you?" she asked in disbelief.
Corrie nodded, wondering again what she must look like to other people.
Corrie and Truus sat for half an hour while Corrie told her story. Truus ordered tea and a cookie for Corrie to eat while she talked.
"What would you like most of all?" Truus asked as Corrie finished her story.
Corrie replied straightaway. There was one thing she had not had for nearly eleven long months. "A hot bath," she said, longingly.
Soon Corrie was lying stretched out in a hot, deep bath. It felt so wonderful as the water lapped around her tired, aching body. But even more wonderful was the knowledge that no one was going to yell at her when she got out, and no one was going to escort her back to a barracks or cell.
Finally, after Truus had asked Corrie four times whether she wanted to get out, Corrie climbed from the tub and wrapped a clean, white towel around herself. How wonderful it felt! After Corrie dried herself, she decided to look in the mirror hanging on the left wall of the bathroom. She stood by the mirror for a moment, summoning her courage. Then she stepped in front of it and looked. Staring back at her was a scrawny old woman. Her hair was cut into short tufts, and her skin was deathly gray.
Truus Benes brought in a new set of clothes. Corrie was glad. She hadn't been able to stop wondering whether the clothes she'd been given at Ravensbruck had belonged to some poor woman who had been gassed there. She was glad to be rid of anything that tied her thoughts to that horrible place.
Next, Corrie was taken to a private room, where she was given a bowl of soup and then tucked into bed. A bed with crisp white sheets, no less, and she had it all to herself. And no one was screaming in agony or cursing at her. She tried to stay awake for as long as possible to enjoy it all, but she was tired and was soon fast asleep.
When she finally awoke the next morning, breakfast was waiting, served on a white tablecloth with a silver knife and fork. Corrie could hardly believe the luxury.
Corrie stayed at the hospital for ten days. With rest and relaxation, the swelling in her legs quickly went down, and she felt much stronger after eating three meals a day. She also took a bath every day, and Nurse Benes arranged for her to have the little hair she had left "styled." But one problem remained—how was she to get back to Haarlem? The Germans had put a complete travel ban in place all over northern Holland. The only people who were able to travel about were those on official Nazi business. And while Corrie was being fed well in the hospital, all over Holland, people were starving. It was a particularly cold winter, and trees were being ripped out of the ground so that every last piece of them could be used for firewood. People were also chopping up furniture to burn and boiling their prized tulip bulbs to eat.
Dutch farmers in the north were forbidden by the Nazis to sell their produce in Holland. It was all supposed to go to Germany to keep the soldiers fighting, but many Dutch farmers found ways around the rule. One brave group was stealing food right off supply trains and trucking it south. News came to the hospital that if Corrie wanted to, she could ride in one of the trucks that was headed to Hilversum with a load of stolen produce.
Corrie's heart leapt at the opportunity. Hilversum was where Willem, Tine, and their children lived. On her eleventh night back in Holland, Corrie was ushered from the hospital into a large old truck. The truck lumbered through the backstreets of Groningen without its headlights on because it was too dangerous to use them.
Corrie prayed for a safe trip as the truck headed west. She knew they weren't supposed to be traveling, and at any moment the truck could be stopped by the Nazis. And if it were stopped, Corrie would be found riding in a truck loaded with stolen vegetables. She dared not think what would happen then. But she had to get home to Haarlem, and if this was the only way to do it, she was willing to risk being caught.
The truck drove on through the night and pulled to a halt in front of Willem's rest home just as the sun was beginning to rise. Willem's rest home looked just as it always had. Corrie climbed down from the cab of the truck and looked up the path that led to the front door. She stood for a moment
Out from Under the Grip eye and then slowly walked up the path towards the familiar brick building. As she approached the house, she remembered the last time she and Willem had both been free together. It had been nearly a year ago at the Beje when he was holding his weekly prayer meeting just as the Gestapo burst into the house. Corrie knocked loudly on the rest home door.
Within minutes, Willem, Tine, and their children excitedly surrounded Corrie, smothering her with hugs and kisses. They peppered her with questions, and as she told them about how Betsie had died in Ravensbruck, tears welled from their eyes. Then Tine reported how they had not heard anything from Kik since he had been taken to Germany. But the sadness was tempered by some good news. Willem told how all the people who had been hiding in the Beje, except Mary, had managed to avoid capture by the Nazis. And the underground network in Haarlem was still working hard hiding people from the Germans.
Corrie stayed the next week with Willem and his family, but by the second day with them, she realized Willem was ill. He did not like to talk about it, but Tine told Corrie that Willem had become sick with tuberculosis in jail and hadn't got any better after his release. Willem, though, carried on as if nothing had happened, working in the rest home and writing a book about the Old Testament. He also spent a lot of time figuring out how to get Corrie back to the Beje. He knew that she wouldn't feel completely at home until she was there.
At breakfast one day in late January, Willem announced that everything was set for Corrie to go back to the Beje. No trains were running, but a car would pick her up at eleven o'clock in the morning and take her there. Sure enough, at exactly 11:00 A.M., a black limousine pulled up in front of the rest home. The family waved good-bye as Corrie stepped into the limousine for the most luxurious drive of her life. She was curious how Willem had arranged such a wonderful ride, but she knew better than to ask. "Don't ask questions" was a lesson Corrie hadn't forgotten from her involvement in the underground.
The car zoomed towards Haarlem. No other vehicles were on the road, which gave the trip an eerie feeling. But with no traffic, in no time the limousine was turning at the corner past St. Bavo's Church into Barteljorisstraat. It rolled along the street and pulled to a halt in front of the clockshop. Corrie climbed out, and the car sped away. As it disappeared from view at the end of Barteljorisstraat, she took a deep breath. She had imagined this moment so many times, though always with Betsie standing beside her.
Before Corrie could open the door to the clockshop, it swung open, and Nollie rushed out. She enveloped Corrie with her arms. The two sisters hugged and clung to each other with tears of joy running down their cheeks. Finally, arm in arm they walked into the Beje. Waiting inside were Nollie's three daughters, who eagerly welcomed Tante Corrie home. The five of them walked together through the Beje. First, they went into Corrie's bedroom; the Angels' Den was still hidden behind the linen closet and bookcase. The Gestapo had never managed to discover the entrance to it. Next, they went into Tante Jans's old bedroom; the chair in which their mother had sat and looked out over Barteljorisstraat so many years before still sat by the window. In the kitchen, Betsie's favorite recipe book was still propped up beside the stove. And in the clockshop, Casper ten Boom's eyeglass lay on his workbench, right where he had left it. All the things were still there in the Beje, but the people who made it home were not. As Corrie walked through the house, both happiness and sadness mingled inside her. Corrie was happy to be free, happy to be back in Haarlem in the Beje, but sad because Betsie and her father were not there and would never be there again.
Together Nollie, Corrie, and the girls cleaned the house until it was spotless. But somehow, after all the dreams and longing to be back at the Beje, it didn't feel like home to Corrie anymore. Even after she resumed her watchmaking career, she would sit down to replace the mainspring in a watch and not be able to concentrate on the task. All the time she felt as though she should be somewhere else doing something else.
Despite what she was feeling, throughout the spring of 1945, Corrie tried hard to pick up and go on with her life as it had been before the Gestapo raid. But her attempt to get back to normal was made even more difficult by the fact that northern Holland was still under German occupation. Hitler had pulled all his occupying troops out of Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and France, but for whatever reason, he was unwilling to loosen his grip on northern Holland. This left the citizens of Haarlem and other northern towns in a terrible situation. They had no food, no fuel, and no transportation. Dutch citizens were dying from starvation and the cold right in their own homes, while in many other parts of Europe, people were celebrating their liberation from German occupation.
Spring dragged on, and Corrie watched as so many people she knew became desperate to survive, almost as desperate as the prisoners she and Betsie had been with in Vught and Ravensbruck concentration camps. As she saw what was happening to them, she remembered Betsie's words: "We must tell the people there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper." As she recalled those words, Corrie knew what was missing from her life. She wasn't supposed to be in the clockshop repairing watches. God wanted her out telling these desperate people about His love for them.
Within days, Corrie had begun speaking in homes and at church gatherings. It was difficult for her to relive the pain she had been through, but the stories she told about herself and Betsie gave many people courage to go on. And because of that, despite her emotional pain, Corrie knew she could not stop speaking about her experience.
Then on May 1, 1945, news quickly buzzed through Holland that Adolf Hitler was dead. The official word was that he had died fighting the enemy. The world would later learn he had committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin.
All Holland held its breath. Surely it was only a matter of days now before the Nazis surrendered and gave up Holland. And it was. On Tuesday, May 8, 1945, Canadian tanks rolled into Haarlem. The bells of St. Bavo's Church rang out, and everyone crowded into the streets.
Corrie had one thing to do before she joined the others in the street. She took her father's portrait off the wall in the parlor and carried it down to the clockshop. Lovingly she set it in the front window of the shop. Then she climbed the stairs again and brought down the old family Bible that he had read from every morning and evening. She opened it at Psalm 91 and laid it in the window. Then she took orange (the Dutch royal color) ribbons and draped them across Casper ten Boom's portrait. "Now," Corrie said to herself, "he too is a part of this great day." With that she slipped out the side door of the Beje and disappeared into the throng of celebrating Dutch people, free Dutch people, who were finally out from under the clutches of Nazi Germany. si sen Salas uta? fer rhe
Help, Hope, and Healing
RY" though the war was over, things did not return to normal in Holland. The whole Dutch way of life had been damaged. Almost every family in the country was missing a son or a nephew. And for the ten Boom family, their nightmare did not immediately end with the war. In 1946, Willem ten Boom died, having never fully recovered from the tuberculosis he contracted while imprisoned by the Nazis. He died without knowing what had happened to his oldest son, Kik. It wasn't until several years later that Tine finally learned that their son had died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.
Slowly, information began to come out about how brutal and terrible Adolf Hitler and the Nazis had really been. It was worse than anyone had imagined. Of the 115,000 Jews in Holland before the war, only about 8,500 had survived. And throughout Europe, between eighteen million and twentysix million people had died in concentration camps. It was hard to get an exact number because so many people had just disappeared with no trace. But two numbers that were known were that at least six million Jews and four hundred thousand Gypsies had been killed. Some of the pictures photographers took of what the Allies found when they entered the concentration camps were so horrible that they were never published. When all the soldiers killed were added in, the Second World War claimed over fifty million lives and destroyed some of the world's most beautiful cities.
Before he died, Willem was able to locate the unmarked grave in Scheveningen where Casper ten Boom had been buried. The ten Boom family had his body reburied in the war cemetery at Loenen, along with hundreds of other brave men and women who, working for the underground, had given their lives for their fellow countrymen. The "Grand Old Man" of Haarlem finally had the resting place he deserved. Corrie wept during the dedication service of his new grave. She mourned that Betsie's body would never lie beside his.
Corrie stayed busy speaking after the war. More than ever, people needed to hear about how to forgive others and go on with their lives. She was especially concerned for the people who, like her,
Help, Hope, and Healing
had been held captive by the Nazis and had witnessed unspeakable horrors. Many of them had been so terrified by what they saw and experienced that they found it hard to fit into normal life.
During this time, there was one particular meeting Corrie spoke at that she never forgot. It was like many of the other meetings, until the end, when a well-dressed woman came up to her.
"Hello," said the woman. "I am Mrs. Bierens de Haan, and I live in Bloemendaal."
Corrie nodded. She knew the area well. Years before she had regularly taken her Walking Club for strolls around the gardens of the palatial homes there.
"Do you still live in that little house with the clockshop downstairs?" asked Mrs. de Haan kindly.
Corrie frowned, wondering whether she should know this woman. "Yes, I do," she replied. "How do you know about it?"
Mrs. de Haan smiled. "My mother used to tell me stories about her visits there. She would go to visit a woman who had been married to a pastor." Corrie smiled. "Tante Jans. She was always involving ladies in charity work."
Mrs. de Haan nodded. "Yes, my mother was very interested in charity, and so am I. When you were speaking about the need for a place for those released from Nazi prisons and concentration camps to go to recuperate, I had the strangest impression that I should talk to you. My husband is dead, but we had five sons together. All five of them worked in the underground, and one of them, Jan, was captured and taken off to Germany. We have not heard a word from him since."
"So you want me to pray for him, Mrs. de Haan? I would be honored to do that," said Corrie, trying to anticipate where Mrs. de Haan was headed with the conversation.
"No, that's not it," she said with a smile. "When I was listening to you, I felt God tell me two things.
First, Jan would be fine and coming home soon, and second, when he comes home I should hand my home over to you for your work as a way of saying thank you."
For a moment Corrie didn't know what to say. It sounded like Mrs. de Haan thought she had made some sort of a bargain with God to get her son back. Corrie did not want to be a part of that. What if her son didn't come home? Not many underground workers who were captured did. Quickly she tried to think of some way to let Mrs. de Haan down gently.
"That's very kind of you," Corrie began, "but back in Ravensbruck, shortly before she died, Betsie described to me the inside of a home. She was very specific about the details, and I believe in her memory I should do my best to find a home like the one she described." Corrie paused to recall Betsie's description. "The house she described had inlaid wood floors, and there were marble statues set in little nooks all along the walls. And the staircase was wide, and the windows were tall and went all the way to the ceiling..."
Corrie stopped midsentence when she saw the beaming smile that had spread across Mrs. de
Haan's face.
"Then that settles it," said Mrs. de Haan. "I see you've been to my house already. I can't wait for Jan to get home!"
Corrie was amazed by her reply, but not nearly as amazed as when Mrs. de Haan's son Jan returned home alive and well a few days later. And nothing compared to how amazed she was when later that week she toured the de Haan home. It was exactly like the house Betsie had described to her in Ravensbruck. Corrie had thought that in her delirious mind Betsie may have been describing what she thought heaven was like, but in fact she had been describing the inside of Mrs. de Haan's home. It gave Corrie goosebumps to walk across the inlaid wood floor and stare up at the statues set into nooks in the walls. It was a beautiful place, a perfect place for people to rest and get over the trauma of being held captive in a concentration camp.
True to her word, Mrs. de Haan handed over the fifty-six-room home to Corrie. Within a month, the house was filled with people. Some of them were newly released from concentration camps. Some were Jews who had spent the past five years hiding in attics and cellars. Others were Dutch people who had been bombed out of their homes and had nowhere else to go. Still others were orphans whose entire families had been wiped out by the Nazis.
Many people came to help Corrie with her work. Doctors and nurses, gardeners and housekeepers, all came to lend a hand. But many who came to help thought that Corrie should run the home more strictly. For example, at three o'clock every morning, one man got up and walked to Haarlem. He had spent a good part of the war ina concentration camp, and Corrie knew he needed to know he was free to go anywhere at any time. Some people thought the gates should be locked at night so he could not go out. Corrie, though, refused to lock anything. She had seen enough locks and barbed wire to last a lifetime, and so had many of the people who came to her for help at the de Haan house.
Meals, too, were served anytime anyone wanted something to eat. Again, some nurses suggested that Corrie have bells and proper mealtimes, but Corrie could not do it. The lives of the people she was helping had been entirely regulated by horns and bells for so long that they, like her, never wanted to hear either again. Corrie remembered how wonderful it had been when she got to the hospital at Groningen. She remembered the smell of the fresh sheets, the kindness of the nurses, the Bach music playing on the radio, and the shelves stocked with books. Kindness and beauty, they were the things the survivors needed most of all, and Corrie did all she could to provide them for the people who came to her for help.
Many people found healing and peace at the de Haan home, but one group of people could find no peace anywhere in Holland. It seemed no one wanted to help them. They were the men and women who had been a part of the National Socialist Bond (NSB), which had helped the Nazis control Holland. As soon as the war was over, their neighbors turned on them, showing all the anger and hatred they had not been allowed to express for five years. The members of the NSB were thrown out of their homes and spat upon when they went out in public. Corrie felt sorry for them and invited several to live in the de Haan house in Bloemendaal. This turned out to be a disaster. The people who had lost family members and friends because members of the NSB had betrayed them would not welcome them into the house. There were huge arguments, and in the end, Corrie had to give up the idea of forcing them to live together.
Corrie came up with another idea, however. She remembered the night her father had been arrested and his words to the Nazi official who had offered him his freedom. "Tomorrow morning I will open my doors again to anyone who is in need of my help," he had said to the officer. Casper ten Boom would have let members of the NSB into his home; Corrie was sure of it. So in honor of him, she allowed those who had been in the National Socialist
Bond to take over the Beje and live in it. Six or seven of them at a time went to live in the home of a man whom a member of the group had betrayed. There they found help and healing.
Gradually the people at Bloemendaal followed Corrie's example and began to reach out to their fellow countrymen and women living at the Beje. But as she was urging people to forgive others, especially those who had been members of the NSB, Corrie was wrestling with her own thoughts and feelings. An old friend from the underground had told her where Jan Vogel was living. Jan Vogel was the man who had visited her the night before the raid, asking for six hundred guilders. Corrie knew she had to forgive him. Finally, one day, she felt strong enough to get out a pen and paper and begin writing him a letter. "I heard that you are most likely the person who betrayed my family and me. As a result, 1 was in a concentration camp for ten months. My father died in prison nine days after he was arrested. My sister died in Ravensbruck concentration camp...."
Corrie struggled to write the letter. "God, I do not have the strength to forgive this man; please give me Your strength," she prayed as she wrote. Eventually, she finished the letter, telling Jan Vogel she forgave him for the terrible thing he had done to the ten Boom family and urging him to ask God to forgive him also.
By 1947, so many people wanted to help with the work at the de Haan house in Bloemendaal that Corrie had time to write and travel. It was during this time she wrote her first book, A Prisoner and Yet.... Most of the book was written in the early hours of the morning. Two years after being released from Ravensbruck, Corrie still awoke at 4:30 every morning, the time the prisoners had gotten up for roll call. The book told the story of Corrie and Betsie's time at Vught and Ravensbruck. The message of the book was that God wants all persons to forgive those who have wronged them. After writing the difficult letter to Jan Vogel forgiving him, Corrie thought she was living the message of her book, that is, until she traveled to Germany to speak.
At a large church in Munich, she spoke about how God asks people to forgive one another and how, with His love, they can become like brothers and sisters, no matter what their nationality. When Corrie had finished speaking, many people came up to thank her for what she had said. She shook their hands and thanked them for coming and listening. Then, when the church was nearly empty, Corrie spotted a tall man with blond hair making his way towards her. In a flash she was back in the shower building at Ravensbruck. This man, an SS Guard, was standing by the door, hand on his gun, leering at the women prisoners as he made them strip. Corrie stood motionless as he approached her. She heard his voice as if it were a million miles away.
"Thank you for your talk," he said. "It is so wonderful to know God forgives all our sins, isn't it?"
Corrie looked at the man standing in front of her. Instead of seeing his smiling face, she saw the faces of Betsie and her father. The man thrust out his hand to shake Corrie's, and as he did so, hatred filled her heart. She would not and could not lift her hand to shake his.
"Oh God," she prayed silently, "help me to live my message."
As she prayed those words, it was as though a strong jolt of electricity had run through her body. Her arm stretched out as though she had no control over it, and she shook the man's hand. As she did so, all the hatred she felt melted away, and she knew she had forgiven him.
"Yes, it is wonderful to know that God forgives all our sins!" she said, meaning every word.
Later, in Germany, another man came to see Corrie. He had heard about the work at the de Haan house in Bloemendaal. He was a member of the German Lutheran Church, and he told Corrie that the new German government wanted the church to open a similar home for Germans who had been devastated by the war and were still struggling to adapt to normal life. He asked Corrie if she would help to set it up. Corrie thought it was a good idea, until she heard where it was going to be located—in a former concentration camp called Darmstadt. She didn't think she had the strength to go inside another concentration camp, even though it had been closed for two years, much less turn it into a place of recovery. However, Betsie's words rang in her mind: "We must tell them there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper." Despite her feelings, Corrie knew what she had to do, and she set about turning Darmstadt into a place of hope and healing.
The years sped by for Corrie. In: 1953, Nollie died, leaving Corrie feeling very alone. Corrie was the last of Casper ten Boom's children still alive. But she did not give up her work. More opportunities came for her to speak and share her simple message. All in all, she visited over sixty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan, Israel, and New Zealand. In 1956, she went on one of her speaking trips with Dr. Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision. They had just finished a series of meetings in Taiwan when he made a ridiculous suggestion. "Why don't you meet with Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands?"
Corrie laughed. She decided that since Bob Pierce was an American, he didn't understand that a Dutch commoner did not make an appointment to see the Queen.
"It's not that easy," she told him. "Well," replied Bob Pierce, "pray about it and see what happens."
Corrie agreed to do that, but she knew she had done nothing extraordinary in Holland. Many thousands of Dutch people had been as brave as she had been, and some had suffered far more than she had suffered. Still, she would pray about it.
When Corrie got back to the Netherlands, she sent a letter to Wilhelmina, who now called herself
Princess Wilhelmina because she had stepped aside from the throne so that her daughter Juliana could become queen. Three days later, the royal car was outside Corrie's house waiting to pick Corrie up. Corrie sat in shock all the way to "'t Loo," where the royal palace was located. Corrie and Princess Wilhelmina became good friends, and the princess invited Corrie back for many evening chats. Corrie told her all about her life and how God had given her a message of forgiveness to take to the world. She also told Princess Wilhelmina about her father and how he had prayed for her every morning of his life—how he would have loved to know that his youngest daughter actually sat in the palace and talked with Wilhelmina about God's love!
As Corrie got older, she found it more difficult to travel alone, so she was joined by an assistant, Conny van Hoogstraten. Together they continued traveling the world, where Corrie would share her message with anyone who would listen.
On one of her trips to the United States, Corrie met a talented writing duo, John and Elizabeth Sherrill, who listened to her story and read her book A Prisoner and Yet.... The Sherrills asked
Corrie if they could work with her on a book that would tell the whole story of the ten Boom family during the German occupation of Holland. Corrie agreed, and in 1971, The Hiding Place was published.
The book was an instant hit, selling over two million copies. Suddenly, Corrie ten Boom was a well-known figure to Christians around the world.
Help, Hope, and Healing (95
Although she found it difficult being famous, she was grateful that the fame helped to spread her message even farther afield. Wherever she went, she took a box of her books to give away to people, all sorts of people. At an airport, she would start a conversation with a skycap. "I bet you really know your way through this airport," she would comment. The skycap would agree, proud that someone had noticed. "Well, that is wonderful," Corrie would go on. "But it is more important that you know the way to heaven. Do you?" Then she would pull out one of her books, sign it, and hand it to the skycap with great flourish. "Here, read this, and if you have any questions, write to me." She would tuck an address card into the book.
When she had settled into her seat on the airplane, she would stop a stewardess. "Would you please give this to the pilot?" she would ask as she handed the stewardess two copies of her book, one for her to keep and one for the pilot.
From the time The Hiding Place was published, Corrie was hardly ever back in Holland. She slept in a different bed almost every night as she busily kept up her travel schedule. However, in 1974, she got to return to Haarlem. The Hiding Place was being turned into a movie, which was filming in Holland.
Corrie took the cast and crew of the movie to visit the Beje. She led them along Barteljorisstraat and up to the familiar green door of the Beje. She opened the door and stepped back in time. The Beje was still filled with memories of her mother and father and Betsie. As she ushered the cast and crew inside, she stopped in her tracks. The was a noise coming from upstairs. She motioned for the others to stay put downstairs while she climbed the stairs to investigate. The noise grew louder and louder as she climbed. It was coming from her old bedroom on the third floor, and it was the sound of Hebrew chanting. Loud, sorrowful chanting. Corrie knew the voice could belong to only one person, Eusie!
She tiptoed to the door of her old bedroom and peeked in. There, side by side, stood Eusie and Hans Poley. Eusie was chanting, and Hans was listening with his eyes closed. When they had finished, Corrie walked into the room. All three of them embraced warmly.
"What are you doing here?" she finally asked. "It has been thirty years since we were hiding here," said Eusie, waving his hand towards the Angels' Den. "When we sat in there hour after hour wondering whether we would be caught by the Nazis, I made a promise to God. I told Him that if I got out alive, I would come back to this place to sing praises to Him in my loudest voice. Not only did I make it through, but my wife and three children also survived. We are the only Jewish family I know who survived the war intact." His voice cracked, and then he went on, "Today I came back to sing."
Corrie smiled. Her father would have loved to hear the Jewish cantor's voice resounding through the Beje once more.
Finally, the three of them descended the stairs. In the clockshop, the cast and crew were waiting eagerly for a report on the noise upstairs. Corrie introduced Eusie and Hans to the cast, who peppered them both with questions about their experiences hiding out in the Beje during the war.
Corrie continued to travel the globe, sharing her message of love and forgiveness. Occasionally, she would feel it was time for her to settle down and lead a quiet life, but then she would remember Betsie's words: "We must tell them there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper." Whenever Corrie heard those words ring in her mind, she knew she had to keep going.
In 1976, at the age of eighty-four, Corrie was still going strong. She and her assistant embarked on an eighteen-city tour of the United States that took seven months. Eventually, though, Billy Graham, who had befriended Corrie, convinced her she should settle down a little and stop her hectic pace, which would wear a woman half her age out! So in 1977, Corrie and her new assistant, Pam Rosewell, moved into a ranch-style house in the suburb of Placentia located in Orange County, California. Corrie might have agreed to stay put in one place, but she hadn't said anything about stopping! She announced to Pam her latest plan. She would produce five new books and five new teaching movies in less than two years.
By her eighty-seventh birthday, Corrie had completed her plan. But the effort and energy required to do it had taken its toll on her body. One morning soon afterwards, Corrie awoke to find she could not move at all. Lying in bed, she knew what had happened. She had suffered a massive stroke, just as her mother had sixty years before. At first, everyone thought Corrie was going to die, but she didn't. She recovered a little, but she could no longer speak. Then she had a second and a third stroke. Her old Dutch friend Lotte Reimeringer moved into the house to help Pam Rosewell take care of her. They played the music of Bach and Beethoven on the stereo and took turns reading to Corrie. They even read some of her own books to her. As they read, Corrie relived her happy childhood with Betsie, Willem, and Nollie. She could hear Peter's wonderful organ music and see her mother doing embroidery. She remembered her father sitting in his favorite chair and experienced again the joy of running through the sand dunes with her Triangle Club girls. And she would smile and nod. What a wonderful life she had lived. Her experiences had made her famous, and her books and movies would have made her rich if she hadn't given nearly all her money away to various causes.
Corrie had faithfully followed the encouragement Betsie had given her thirty-three years before. She had spent the rest of her life after being released from Ravensbruck telling people there was no pit so deep that God's love wasn't deeper. Finally, the woman who had lived to tell others about love and forgiveness died quietly in her bed on April 15, 1983, on her ninety-first birthday. Corrie ten Boom was buried in Los Angeles, and her gravestone was inscribed, "Corrie ten Boom, 1892-1983, Jesus is Victor."
Bibliography
ten Boom, Corrie. In My Father's House. Fleming H.
Revell Company, 1976. ten Boom, Corrie. Prison Letters. Fleming H. Revell
Company, 1975. ten Boom, Corrie, with Jamie Buckingham. Tramp for the Lord. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1974. ten Boom, Corrie, with John and Elizabeth Sherrill.
The Hiding Place. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1971.
Poley, Hans. Return to the Hiding Place. Chariot Family Publishing, 1993.
Rosewell, Pamela. The Five Silent Years of Corrie ten
Boom. Zondervan Publishing House, 1986.
Wellman, Sam. Corrie ten Boom: Heroine of Haarlem.
Barbour and Company, 1985.
White, Kathleen. Corrie ten Boom. Bethany House
Publishers, 1983.
20.1
¢ a a iit! b a 7y oi
'hm 5 lege ob yay vee
Lens
' imal - I =
1 No [CUA aa ie eit til eettl Sony: i i a Cee
To oy, NT Js ay ar ' re Brin: 21 \, she rib by, te), . a, ahs avi , ae i , ¥ a & way , ; a! sf figs. 'es a ris iy Mery uh i Pav): ees) ee fa y > hese PA ie i + i cee eel olin ix coe ? .<] Tip Pa the a berets, ye ok, a Wilent, are wie
Beier? Mpothogaka 26 wba! Sha nate ri ee 7 ft: aneri i lige wt tS ee, abn | | re r] 'ea Bisel wits os oA Ay santa Salt) wal i 'ites near - aos ayes %s, wren 'sry St way Als ie ' er," ae pena petal! tairekaats iL 7 a en a a hye iii wig 'bong aus 3 er » i. Ca ee PAR Lo pata aa ig Bea: Neal neal ors rer
Vieg at et ve ray bie 45 , : A , t 7h an i: 4 f %: i : } aN '_ Poy Ps S f | 9 bs 1 a ' A UN | ON ae Loc Lp a ; Ve), Ter he ns uae 0% te. 1e0 ma % oN ae ee i id cats ee o Ane er 8 ; @ 7 ' OY it 'as TAA + Bi : He sf ¢ a a ao "a ! t t s a ' po as ny Ae ae i ie i} a ¢ tee kay has ea ny a zis a a) 1 : vin Olea of « . A Me ia oe Li ce Se Cad wet eect alice ees 'a 1y R ~ 4 rd at ' re i 1 . ' : vs iil wo
About the Authors
Janet and Geoff Benge are a husband and wife writing team with over 13 years of writing experience. Janet is a former elementary school teacher. Geoff holds a degree in history. Originally from New Zealand, the Benges spent ten years serving with Youth With A Mission. They have two daughters, Laura, age 11, and Shannon, age 15, and an adopted son, Lito, age 20. They make their home in the Orlando, Florida, area. sep bas sarah le ee ee i ine a ne OH ae an 2 ; +) ye yi an by ied lari h/ has' 4, teal Rodis inn leak ae readin Vs; ana iT tee Alps ek oe '2
AY) paen Peet 1 Vrariaies Sutil & B me a est dar) at eal uf wotgenhs "ep : Sala ok ROT TPO GS. CeGnyeT weal pawents RU ny) co itrt Veale satealia A fey cbiiad a - \ Roe Bias ny os artes aaa ' f a ee Phe pai in ieee aq) ie 'We « fh, reer! io af ¥ i a hy '
Ll ' § an - j f J | iJ he fi I : — ne 4 ; = e iy ie ; : ; f ny Ye: f i : a ret " T t" a Uh ly ; , Po rea he a : i re 4 Ph eit | "a nye WO dd atl yp RieD 4 a H i: AU eee ya ia Mi a> Pay mn : ia aoe i re ny 44 Hee i a PH un tN gh ®. TAN aa "4 '; iS ere i 'igi ie ny he he ait eealiee pric ili a tas
Mee a ag
SS re | nen 5 a
aon oe a
Spiring true stories of men and omen who answered God's call
A wealthy Irish girl rescuing children in India? An English maid preaching the gospel in China? An American pilot serving missionaries in Ecuador?
Christian Heroes: Then & Now chronicles the exciting, challenging, and deeply touching true stories of ordinary men and women whose trust in God accomplished extraordinary exploits for His kingdom and glory.
ONSSSOD
Corrie ten Boom
The harsh lights stung Corrie's blackened eyes as she entered the Gestapo-controlled police station in Haarlem. How true her elderly father's words had been that quiet evening before Hitler's madness descended on Holland: "Germany will invade Holland. We will lose. God help all those in Holland who do not call on His name."
Suddenly, Corrie's ordered life was lost in the insanity of war. With bravery and compassion, her family and countless other Dutch citizens risked everything to extend God's hand to those innocents marked for certain execution in a world gone mad. f sc ten Boom's life of determination, faith, and forgiveness q in the face of unimaginable brutality and hardship isa stunning — testimony to the sustaining power of God. .
ISBN 1-57658-13b-5
90000>
'A Ministry Of Youth With A |
60 U.S. $8.99 P.O. Box 55787, Seattle, WA 981
9°TE15 76 DOS