corrie ten Boom
even in the darkest times her faith never wavered
While the Gies family is possibly the best known for hiding Jews from the Nazis in the Netherlands, they weren’t the only ones. In Haarlem the house of the Ten Boom family became a safe haven for several people escaping persecution because of their race. Five to six refugees would stay in the house on a temporary basis, with others sheltering there for only a couple of hours or days before moving on.
In 1944 the Ten Boom family – Casper and his daughters Betsie and Corrie – were betrayed. On 28 February their home was raided and over 30 people were arrested. However, the Nazis never found six people who had been hidden behind a false wall. Corrie spent time in Scheveningen Prison before being transported to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp with her sister. Betsie unfortunately died there, but Corrie managed to survive and upon her release she travelled the world, preaching the love of God despite the terrible times that she lived through. But she couldn’t have known how lucky she was at the time – a clerical error meant that she was released just before all of the female prisoners her age at Ravensbrück were executed.
“love is larger than the walls which shut it in”