Corrie Ten Boom: Faith & Forgiveness | 1892-1983
“…Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” Colossians 3:13 (KJV)
Biography:
Cornelia Ten Boom was born in the Netherlands (or Holland) in 1892. She grew up in a Christian household with her two older sisters, Nollie and Betsie, and her older brother, Willem. While Nollie and Willem eventually married and moved away to raise their own families, Betsie and Corrie remained single and lived with their parents. Corrie’s father, Casper, owned a watch repair shop in Haarlem. Corrie’s mother died in 1921, and Corrie worked alongside her father, becoming the first licensed female watchmaker in Holland.
World War II raged in Europe in the late 1930’s, and the Nazi forces invaded Holland in May of 1940. After five days of fighting, the Dutch forces surrendered, and Haarlem was soon occupied by Nazi troops. Willem ran a home for the elderly before the war, which he converted into a refuge for Jews and other “undesirables” fleeing Nazi persecution during the occupation. The Ten Boom home, called the Beje by their family and friends, became the center of a large underground resistance network in Haarlem and the surrounding towns. Corrie and Betsie arranged for the stealing of ration cards for hidden Jews, the safe passage of Jews to homes in the countryside or Willem’s nursing home, and communication amongst various resistance workers. Eventually, the Beje itself became the permanent home of a handful of refugees that were refused shelter elsewhere. Resistance workers constructed “the hiding place,” a hidden room on the top floor of the Beje where these refugees would hide themselves, their belongings, and any sensitive material that might arouse unwanted suspicion. Corrie, Betsie, and Casper worked faithfully in the resistance for four years and hid people in their home from 1943 to 1944.
In February of 1944, during a prayer meeting held by Willem, the Gestapo raided the Beje. Corrie, Betsie, Casper, Willem, Nollie, and Nollie’s son Peter were all arrested, as well as many others in the house that night. The four who stayed with the Ten Boom family had rushed to the Hiding Place and avoided discovery.
For months, Corrie was held in solitary confinement in Scheviningen prison, where she was questioned and left with little word of how her family had fared. She and Betsie, who had been kept in the same prison, eventually discovered that Willem and Nollie had been released, but their father had died just ten days after his arrest. The two sisters were eventually transferred to a concentration camp called Vught, where they worked and ministered to their fellow prisoners via a Bible they had managed to sneak past the guards. After several months, they were transferred to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp in Germany. There, they worked together to pray, read the Bible, and otherwise encourage the other female prisoners. Betsie predicted that they would be released by the New Year. But she soon became sick and was transferred to the camp hospital. Betsie died on December 16, 1944. Just a few days later, Corrie was released.On New Year’s Day, 1945, she was free. Corrie found out later that her release was due to a clerical error. By all accounts, she should have died in Ravensbruck.
After her release, Corrie returned to the Beje. Willem and Nollie had been released not long after their arrest, and she spent time recovering with her family. But after the war ended, Corrie soon became restless. While in the camp, Betsie had dreamed of a rehabilitation camp where all those affected by the war could recover and learn to live again. Betsie included the Nazi guards and officials as people who needed this rehabilitation as much as the Jews and other prisoners. Corrie started a home for this purpose, where dozens of former prisoners relearned how to live and worked to forgive their oppressors. It took a tremendous amount of time and money, and Corrie traveled to many different locations, becoming a public speaker and telling of her and Betsie’s experience. Eventually, one of the concentration camps in Ravensbruck was cleaned out and opened. There Corrie brought Betsie’s ultimate dream to life: a rehabilitation camp made new, both physically by new paint and flowers planted everywhere, and spiritually by the sufferers who would go there to be healed of their terrible pasts.
Corrie continued to work with former prisoners and traveled as a public speaker across the world. She wrote several books, including her most famous, The Hiding Place, which told her and Betsie’s story. After many years of faithful service, she died in 1983 at the age of ninety-one.
Lessons from Corrie Ten Boom’s Life:
Corrie’s life—as well as the lives of all her family—was one of enduring faithfulness, and her testimony is one of God’s great power to forgive. Throughout her childhood and adult years, biblical truths had been instilled in her. Corrie’s father read the Bible to the rest of the family every night. Her parents were intentional about serving others: the Ten Booms often made meals for the hungry, raised orphans as their own, and cared for both family and non-relatives alike. When the Nazis came to Haarlem, Corrie said that it seemed only natural they help those displaced and persecuted by Hitler’s regime. It would have been safer to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the Jews, and many of the Dutch people did. Corrie and her family would likely have been left alone by the Nazis, if they did not interfere. But the Ten Boom family refused to sit idly by when innocent people were suffering.
Corrie, who by then was in her fifties, would have already been considered a mature Christian. But she struggled internally over issues like what sin was permissible during war, God’s sovereignty, and forgiveness. Was lying permissible to save someone’s life? Why did God allow His special chosen people, the Jews, to be so attacked? How could she forgive those who forced people out of their homes, beat her and her sister, or burned thousands in the ovens of Ravensbruck? Any of these questions would likely make many Christians stumble in their pursuit of Christ. But Corrie remained faithful, even if she didn’t understand everything she faced. Throughout her time as a resistance worker, Corrie knew that at any moment she and all of her family could be arrested, tortured, and killed for their work. Yet, she decided to continue on for years anyway, because she felt that that was what God had called them to do.
While Corrie said that her sister, Betsie, seemed to forgive easily and was always thinking of others, Corrie could not understand the evil propagated by the Germans and all those who aided them. It wasn’t until after her release from Ravensbruck and her work with former prisoners that she began to understand the true nature of forgiveness. Incredibly, she forgave those who hurt her during her imprisonment, personified in one of the guards she met in person at one of her speeches after the war. She taught her fellow former prisoners how to forgive their own oppressors. And she never pointed to her own strength in doing so. Corrie outlined the mammoth task of forgiving those who had put her through a living hell and killed her sister. She was incapable on her own. But through her faith in Christ, whom she begged to help her forgive, the weight of her bitterness was lifted from her shoulders, and God completed the impossible in her.
Corrie Ten Boom in Her Own Words:
“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.” (said first by Betsie in Ravensbruck.)
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”
“What a sad mistake we sometimes make when we think that God only cares about Christians.”
“How often it is a mistake to think of ourselves as forgotten!”
“I have experienced His presence the deepest hell that man can create. I have really tested the promises of the Bible, and believe me, you can count on them.”
“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”
“Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.”
“You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have.”
“If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. But if you look to God, you’ll be at rest.”
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
“Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.”
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”
“The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.”
What Others Said About Corrie Ten Boom:
“Corrie is one of the great Christian heroines of the century.” –Rev. Billy Graham
“Corrie cared, as God cares, about the state of people’s hearts.” –Elizabeth Sherrill
Sources
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, John Sherrill, and Elizabeth Sherrill
Holocaust Encyclopedia, Corrie ten Boom | Holocaust Encyclopedia | Holocaust Encyclopedia
Corrie Ten Boom House, Family Ten Boom | Corrie ten Boom House
Crosswalk.com, 40 Powerful Quotes from Corrie Ten Boom | Crosswalk.com
AZ Quotes, TOP 25 QUOTES BY CORRIE TEN BOOM (of 175) | A-Z Quotes
ScriptureSavvy.com, Top 150 Corrie Ten Boom Quotes (With Meanings) – Scripture Savvy
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