Cornelia “Corrie” Arnolda Johanna was born on April 15, 1892 in Haarlem, Netherlands as the youngest of Casper and Cornelia ten Boom’s children. Casper was a respected jeweler and watchmaker. Her mother, Cornelia, died of a stroke in 1921. 

In May 1940, Nazi forces invaded the Netherlands. Two years later, a woman carrying a suitcase came to the ten Boom family’s shop and told them that she was a Jew. Her husband had been arrested, and she was afraid to go home. She heard that the ten Boom family had previously helped Jewish neighbors, and she asked if they would also help her. Although the police headquarters were a short distance from their shop, Casper agreed. 

The ten Booms built a secret room that could only be entered from behind a tall closet in Corrie’s room. A buzzer was installed to warn their illegal guests to immediately go to “the hiding place.”

The ten Boom family helped more than 800 Jewish people escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust. 

But sadly, on February 28, 1944, the ten Boom family was arrested. 10 days later, Corrie’s father died in the local prison. Corrie and her sister, Betsie, were sent to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp for women located north of Berlin.

Throughout their incarceration, Corrie and Betsie held worship services in the evening. Corrie and Betsie made plans for establishing a place of healing after the war. However, because of Betsie’s declining health, she died on December 16, 1944 at the age of 59. Corrie was encouraged by Betsie’s affirmation just days before her death: “There is no pit so deep that He [God] is not deeper still.” Corrie was released 12 days after her sister’s death. 

Corrie’s famed biography “The Hiding Place” (1971) recounts the story of her family’s life and her personal testimony of how she found and shared hope in God throughout her imprisonment. 

After the war, Corrie returned to the Netherlands and opened the rehabilitation center that she and her sister had planned. She had come full circle from providing a “hiding place” to a “healing place” for those affected by the war. The center housed concentration camp survivors, as well as sheltering disgraced and jobless Dutch citizens. 

At age 85, Corrie immigrated to Placentia, CA. In 1978, she suffered two strokes. Corrie died on her 91st birthday, on April 15, 1983, after suffering her third stroke. Corrie ten Boom is buried in Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, CA.

So What?

Can you think of people God placed in your life for His “perfect preparation”? How were you used by God at that time? Were you providing a hiding place or healing place?