According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: She planted a tree at Yad Vashem in honor of her sister Betsie, who died in Ravensbruck for her “crime” of saving Jews. There’s no substitute for being there where history was made.īefore her 1983 death, Corrie was honored by the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations,” for her role in saving Jews from the Holocaust. The ten Booms and their Jewish brothers and sisters whom they risked their lives - and, for some of them, gave their lives - to protect were real people. Thinking now about how it felt to see the actual hiding place brings chills. The ten Boom house is just off the main square in Haarlem. You can go see it for yourself, and should - it’s only a short train ride away from Amsterdam. Many years later, as a grown man, I made a pilgrimage to the Beje, as they called the house. And, crucially, the fact that Corrie survived the concentration camps and emerged to exhort others to forgive and be reconciled with the barbarians who did this evil, staggered me. The moral heroism of the ten Booms sensitized me to the effects of anti-Semitism, and taught me what Christians must do if ever we are in a situation where persecuted people rely on us for protection. Reading The Hiding Place as a kid dramatically affected me. Corrie’s brother Willem, sister Nollie, and nephew Peter were at the house that day, and were also taken to prison.įour members of the ten Boom family, including the 84-year-old patriarch, Caspar, and Corrie’s sister Betsie, would die at the hands of the Nazis for what they did. By evening about 30 people had been taken into custody! Casper, Corrie and Betsie were all arrested. The Gestapo set a trap and waited throughout the day, seizing everyone who came to the house. On February 28, 1944, this family was betrayed and the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) raided their home.
Through these activities, the Ten Boom family and their many friends saved the lives of an estimated 800 Jews, and protected many Dutch underground workers. Corrie and “the Beje group” would search for courageous Dutch families who would take in refugees, and much of Corrie’s time was spent caring for these people once they were in hiding. Corrie became a ringleader within the network of the Haarlem underground. Additional refugees would stay with the Ten Booms for a few hours or a few days until another “safe house” could be located for them. This faith led them to hide Jews, students who refused to cooperate with the Nazis, and members of the Dutch underground resistance movement.ĭuring 1943 and into 1944, there were usually 6-7 people illegally living in this home: 4 Jews and 2 or 3 members of the Dutch underground. This non-violent resistance against the Nazi-oppressors was the Ten Booms’ way of living out their Christian faith. By protecting these people, Casper and his daughters, Corrie and Betsie, risked their lives. The Corrie ten Boom Museum website explains why, and what happened to them:ĭuring the Second World War, the Ten Boom home became a refuge, a hiding place, for fugitives and those hunted by the Nazis. I remember exactly where I was when I entered into the story of the ten Boom family of Haarlem, and the amazing risks they took to hide Jews in their apartment above their father’s clock shop. I was interested in World War II, and brought it with me as vacation reading to the beach, of all places. I recall reading The Hiding Place as a child.
I doubt that this policy is illegal, but I could be wrong. Martin Luther King, Jr.? What about the Declaration of Independence that invokes the laws of nature and nature’s God? We are calling on Springs Charter Schools to immediately reverse their ill-conceived and illegal book-banning policy.”
Are they going to ban the sermons or speeches of the Rev. Indeed, some of the greatest literature of Western Civilization comes from people of faith. PJI President Brad Dacus commented, “It is alarming that a school library would attempt to purge books from religious authors. do not allow sectarian materials on our state-authorized lending shelves.” Kathleen Hermsmeyer, ignored the precedent in PJI’s letter and instead insisted, “We. Last week, the Superintendent of Springs Charter Schools, Dr. Pacific Justice Institute, the Christian religious rights group that wrote to ask school leaders to reverse its ban, reported the following response from the Springs Charter Schools superintendent: Joel Miller brings us the shocking story of a Temecula, California charter school that ordered removed from its shelves The Hiding Place, the fantastic memoir of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian woman who was sent, along with her father and sister, to a concentration camps for the crime of hiding Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland.
0 kommentar(er)
