The Ten Boom family is well known for their efforts in hiding Jews during WW2 in a hidden room on the top floor of their small little "beje" in Haarlem. Mr. Ten Boom was a clockmaker and his shop was on the bottom floor of their little house. Corrie Ten Boom, the youngest of four children, lived in the house with her older sister Betsie and their father during the years of the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. They initially started out hiding their Jewish neighbors from persecution until they were able to connect with an underground network to find them a more secure, permanent residence. As word spread more and more Jewish people started showing up at their doorstep looking for a safe place to escape. They were able to move most of them out to homes in the country that were safe but some of the others that were harder to find safe houses ended up staying with them in their small home. At one point they had 30 people in their house at one time. . . I did not realize the significance of this until I visited the house. . . it is truly a "tiny" place and a household of 3-4 people would be cramped in our standards much less having over 30 people at one time. They eventually had the "hiding place" built in the top floor in case of a raid which would allow their 6 permanent Jewish guests a place of safety for at least a week if need be. There was a small vent in the room and was stocked with water in the event it needed to be used for an extended period of time. The room was behind a false wall in Corrie's bedroom and could only be accessed through a sliding panel in the plastered brick wall under the built in bookshelf. It required you to crawl through to the other side on your hands and knees and had to be done within 1-2 minutes after the alarm the Ten Boom's had installed in their house had sounded. All remnants of these guests must be removed with them and taken to the hiding place in a short amount of time. They had practiced this routine over and over again until they had it perfected. On February 28, 1944 it was no longer a drill. The 6 guests were able to make it to the hiding place and avoid detection but the Ten Boom family was no so lucky. They were taken into imprisonment where Mr. Ten Boom had died within a matter of 10 days and Betsie died later in Ravensbruck concentration camp. Corrie was able to make it through the concentration camps and was released on a clerical error on December 28th 1944 to find out that all of their guests in the hiding place had made it out alive. Corrie went on to set up rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands for refuges that had survived the concentration camps. She became a public speaker and a writer of many books, her best selling book being The Hiding Place which recounted the story of the Nazi invasion, concentration camps and their work in sheltering the Jewish people. I had read the book several months prior to the trip making this visit especially meaningful to me. We were able to walk through the house, see first hand some items that were mentioned in the book and even crawl through the bookshelf to the "hidding place" behind the wall. It was astonishing how small it really was. The room is only 30 inches deep . . . unbelievable! It was a touching visit and I am so very thankful we were able to see this first hand . . the memories
will last forever.
The Hiding Place
We then wandered the streets of Amsterdam and I have to say the weather makes all the difference in the world!!! The Amsterdam we had experienced in the past was kinda creepy . . . inappropriate views at every turn . . . this time we avoided the bad and spent our time wandering the streets in mostly sunlight and ending the day on a canal cruise through the city. It was a lot of fun! The city of bikes made it's way up in my opinion after this trip. I wouldn't mind going back . . it has a certain charm to it with many Renaissance styled buildings and old city houses lining the canals.
1 comment:
Great post! 😊 Great pics too! Love you! ~ mom
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