We all want to help people. At least, we think we do. But would we risk our lives for a stranger’s safety and consider it an honor?
Corrie ten Boom did just that at the height of World War II. Like generations of Dutch Christians before them, the ten Boom family believed that all were equal before God and that the Jews were God’s people. When the war came to Holland, this was the basis for her and her family’s resistance efforts. Corrie and the rest of the ten Booms did not hesitate to help those in need, believing it was their responsibility and opportunity to befriend and protect those in danger. The ten Booms took refugees into their family home in Haarlem, or “the hiding place” as it was to be called, and provided them safety. They saved others when no one else would, their door open to anyone who needed aid. It was for that act of selflessness, humanity, and compassion that eventually led to a Dutch informant at their door and their imprisonment and internment in concentration camps, where Corrie lost both her father and sister.
Corrie endured solitary confinement while in prison and ten months of cruelty while interned, yet always prayed for the hearts of her captors. She was released from Ravensbruck concentration camp on New Year’s Eve 1944 and later learned it was due to a clerical error- the women in her age group were sent to their deaths just one week after her discharge. She went to work setting up rehabilitation houses for survivors and sharing her message of forgiveness, mercy, and God’s grace around the world.
Corrie not only had a deep faith in God, but lived her relationship with Christ in the way she spent her life devoted to other people. Her courage was unparalleled, her triumph exceptional. She helped save over 800 Jews from the Nazis, but also inspired countless others with her story. We don’t know how things would have turned out had Corrie and her family kept their door closed. What we do know is this: no matter the circumstances, there were no bounds to her faith, hope, and trust in the Lord. Corrie passed away on her 91st birthday, going home just as it says in her family’s favorite passage, Psalm 91, to “the hiding place of the Most High.”
“It matters not how dark it is- His light is always brighter.”- Corrie ten Boom
