Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie Ten Boom

(Corrie in the 1920s and Corrie showing the Secret Hiding Spot in her Bedroom after the War.)

Cornelia Arnolda Johanna "Corrie" ten Boom (April 15, 1892 – April 15, 1983) was a Dutch Watchmaker and later a Christian Writer and Public Speaker, who worked with her father, Casper ten Boom, her sister Betsie ten Boom and other Family Members to help many Jewish People escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust in World War II by hiding them in her home. They were caught, and she was arrested and sent to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.

Corrie trained both in Holland and in Switzerland and in 1924 became the first Licensed Female Watchmaker in the Netherlands.

In between Watch-Making she also worked with the Mentally and Physically Disabled in Haarlem, but was forced to stop when the Germans invaded and occupied the Netherlands in May 1940. The Germans murdered 270,000 Disabled Men, Women and Children and Forcibly Sterilized another 375,000 under their T4 Program.

Corrie and her Family joined the Dutch Resistance and started helping Jews and Dutch Resistance Members hide from the Germans (even though the Local Police Station was half a Block from their house.) They even had a Secret Room built in Corrie’s Bedroom where 6 People could hide in the Germans ever came.

On February 28, 1944 a Dutch Informant told the Germans about the ten Booms and they were arrested (the 6 People in the Hiding Place weren’t arrested and were moved to another Hiding Place.)

(Casper ten Boom)

Corrie’s Father, Casper, died 9 days after their arrest in Scheveningen Prison. He was 84 years old.

Corrie and her Sister, Betsie, were first sent to Scheveningen Prison where they stayed for 4 months and then were sent to the Vught Concentration Camp in the German-Occupied Netherlands and then to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Germany.

(Betsie ten Boom)

Betsie died in Ravensbrück on December 16, 1944 at the age of 59.

On December 28, 1944 Corrie was released from Ravensbrück (she later learned it was a clerical error and that a week after her release all Women her age were killed in the Gas Chamber.)

She went back to the Netherlands, which was still under German Occupation, and lived through the Hunger Winter (Hongerwinter) a Famine caused by the Germans during the Winter of 1944-1945 in the Netherlands where 22,000 starved to death.

After the Netherlands was liberated by the Allies she opened a Rehabilitation Center for the Mentally and Physically Disabled and Concentration Camp Survivors.

She wrote several books and traveled to over 60 Countries talking about her Faith and her Resistance Work.

Her most famous book, The Hiding Place, is a Biography that recounts the story of her Family's efforts was written in 1971 and turned into a movie in 1975.

Corrie received Israel’s Righteous Among the Nations on December 12, 1967 (Her Father, Casper, and her Sister, Betsie, both received it in 2008.)

Corrie ten Boom never married and died in California, USA on April 15, 1983 at the age of 91.

(Ten Boom Museum)

The ten Boom Family Store and House became the Ten Boom Museum in 1983.

Corrie ten Boom saved 800 Jewish Men, Women and Children and countless Dutch Resistance Members during World War 2.