It is not often that one can close the last pages of a book and say, “That has to be the most powerful book I have ever read.” But such was my experience upon reading Corrie ten Boom’s beloved masterpiece The Hiding Place. After sitting patiently on my bookshelf for years, it was selected for my book club this past year, and I eagerly unstuck it from the volumes wedged on either side and blew off the dust. Nothing I had ever heard about her story prepared me for it.
Corrie ten Boom was the first licensed female watchmaker in Holland and was the third generation in her father’s family watch shop below their home. Love for anyone within reach made for an extremely philanthropic home, from fostering countless children to working with the mentally handicapped in Haarlem. Thus it was only natural that when Germany invaded Holland and their Jewish friends found themselves in imminent danger, the ten Booms did not give a second thought to putting their own lives on the line for them. They not only built a secret room and opened their home to anyone needing a place to hide, but Corrie also orchestrated a massive smuggling ring that is credited with saving the lives of about 800 Jews and refugees.
“For a year and a half now we had gotten away with our double lives … Sooner or later we were going to make a mistake,” Corrie remembered of 1943. “We knew that in spite of daily mounting risks we had no choice but to move forward. This was evil’s hour: we could not run away from it. Perhaps only when human effort had done its best and failed, would God’s power alone be free to work.” In February 1944, the evil hour did overtake them as they knew it would, and Corrie, her sister, and her father, as well as others in their network, were all sent to prisons and concentration camps.
Corrie and her sister Betsie endured 10 agonizing months of starvation rations, squalid conditions, and brutal, sadistic treatment. Incredibly, they nonetheless saw evidence of God’s love, presence, and provision in the most unexpected places throughout their time in hell on Earth. “We must tell people what we have learned here,” Betsie urged her. “We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here.”
And so, Corrie did. Released by a clerical error only 10 days before she was supposed to be gassed, Corrie ceaselessly traveled the world for the remaining decades of her life sharing the hard-earned lessons of grace and, even more incredibly, complete forgiveness that she gleaned from her walk through the valley of the shadow of death. She also wrote prolifically, and after finishing The Hiding Place, I eagerly plunged into Tramp for the Lord that continues her life story following the war, full with the gems of wisdom she learned at every turn.
Larry Loftis published a new biography on this Dutch heroine this past March entitled The Watchmaker’s Daughter, perfect for those who want a more comprehensive view of Corrie’s incredible story. He also weaves in the experiences of two other famous Dutch women enduring Nazi occupied Holland — Audrey Hepburn and Anne Frank.
To quote from Joni Eareckson Tada’s forward of The Hiding Place, “Corrie’s story is as current and compelling as ever … It is for every person whose soul is threadbare and frazzled, and for every individual who must walk into the jaws of his or her own suffering.”
Corrie’s life certainly proved her words: “In darkness God’s truth shines most clear.”
