Corrie ten Boom

Life

She was born on April 15, 1892. Materials from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum give her birthplace as Amsterdam, while other biographical sources give it as Haarlem. She spent her childhood in Haarlem. Her father, Casper ten Boom, ran a watch shop, and the family lived in the home above the shop on the Barteljorisstraat, which they called the "Beje." The household was devoutly Calvinist and belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church; Corrie was the youngest daughter. She is known as the first woman to be formally licensed as a watchmaker in the Netherlands.

After Germany occupied the Netherlands during World War II, the ten Boom family worked with the Haarlem resistance to hide Jews and others who were being hunted. A false wall was built in Corrie's bedroom, creating a secret space in which about six people could stand. In February 1944 the family was arrested after being betrayed by an informer. The people hiding in the secret room at the time were not discovered; after holding out for nearly three days, they were rescued by the underground. Corrie's 84-year-old father died in Scheveningen prison on March 9, 1944, after fewer than ten days in custody. Corrie and her sister Betsie were held in camps within the Netherlands and in September 1944 were sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Betsie died in the camp on December 16 of that year, and Corrie is said to have been released about two weeks later because of a clerical error.

Ministry and Achievements

After the war she opened a rehabilitation center in the Netherlands to care for victims of the war. She also took in people who had collaborated with the Germans during the occupation. Beginning in 1946 she traveled to more than sixty countries in evangelism and public speaking, chiefly proclaiming the faith she had kept amid suffering, the love of God, and forgiveness.

In 1967 Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance institution, recognized her as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations," a title given to non-Jews who saved Jews; her father and sister later received the same honor. In 1971 she published the memoir The Hiding Place, written with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, which was later made into a film of the same title. The people saved by the ten Boom family and their network numbered in the hundreds, and some sources put the figure at about 800. She died in California on April 15, 1983, her ninety-first birthday. The family's former home in Haarlem opened as a museum in 1988.

Influence on the Korean Church

The Hiding Place was translated into Korean under the title 주는 나의 피난처 (The Lord Is My Refuge). It was published by Word of Life Press, and several editions have since appeared, including a 35th-anniversary special edition (translated by Oh Hyun-mi) published by Good Seed in 2009. Presented as the testimony of an ordinary person who kept her faith in the midst of suffering, it has remained a widely read devotional book among Korean Christians and has been reviewed in Christian media.

Assessment

She is regarded as a woman who, grounded in her Reformed faith, hid her persecuted neighbors and who, after the war, preached forgiveness even toward those on the side of the perpetrators. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states that her religious convictions led her to undertake the rescue of Jews. Sources differ, however, regarding her birthplace, the number of people saved, and the accounts attached to the circumstances of her release (such as the claim that women her age were executed shortly after she was freed), so caution is needed when citing them.