The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom
Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian woman. She was middle-aged and unmarried, living with her father and sister Betsie and running a clock and watch shop when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands during World War II.
Of course, the Nazis soon began arresting and deporting the Jews to the concentration camps. Ten Boom and her family couldn’t stand by and watch their neighbors be rounded up and taken away family by family, so they began sheltering Jews in the home. Gradually, as things became more desperate and more dangerous, the ten Boom family connected with the Dutch Resistance, participating in acquiring counterfeit food ration cards and having a false wall built in their home to hide the Jews staying there.
Eventually, they were ratted out and ten Boom, her father and her older sister were arrested, detained and sent first to a prison, where her father died. Corrie and her sister were eventually sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. You already know how conditions were in a concentration camp, and it was no different for Corrie and her sister. They leaned heavily on their faith, setting up evening prayer services and Bible readings in order to make it through. As Corrie allowed herself to hate the Nazi guards, her sister taught her forgiveness, even of the monsters who imprisoned them.
I was surprised that I had never heard of this book, even though it was published in 1971, before I was born. It tells an important story of the regular people throughout Europe who did what they could to fight the Nazis. The story is timeless now, but still needs to be heard. People need to understand what happened, or history will repeat.
4 stars.
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