The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, Elizabeth & John Sherrill
Corrie ten Boom was a woman admired the world over for her courage, her forgiveness, and her memorable faith. In World War II, she and her family risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazis, and their reward was a trip to Hitler's concentration camps. But she survived and was released--as a result of a clerical error--and now shares the story of how faith triumphs over evil.
For thirty-five years Corrie's dramatic life story, full of timeless virtues, has prepared readers to face their own futures with faith, relying on God's love to overcome, heal, and restore. Now releasing in a thirty-fifth anniversary edition for a new generation of readers, The Hiding Place tells the riveting story of how a middle-aged Dutch watchmaker became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's death camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century.
INCREDIBLY MOVING SAGA OF HEROIC DUTCH FAMILY DURING WW II
This is an absolutely extraordinary book. Never have I read a book in which the spiritual beauty of the author so resonated throughout the story. The purity of heart that manifests itself in this inspiring saga of a heroic, Dutch family in Nazi occupied Holland during World War II is stunningly beautiful.
This is the true story of the Ten Boom family who, during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands, upon seeing what was happening to their Jewish neighbors and friends, asked themselves this age old question "If not us,...who; if not now,...when?" They answered it, ultimately at great cost.
The Ten Booms were devoutly Christian and lived a simple life. The patriarch of the family ran a watch shop that had been in his family for a century. Some of the family members, the author among them, worked there, selling and repairing clocks and watches. They also lived in the house in which the shop was located.
When the Nazis occupied their country, the reality of what it meant slowly dawned upon them, as they saw the treatment given to their fellow Dutch citizens of the Jewish faith. Moved by their plight, the author at the age of fifty, together with other members of her family, including their father who was nearly eighty, became active in the Dutch underground.
When it became clear to the Ten Booms that Jews were being targeted for deportation and death, they had a false wall constructed in the author's bedroom, thereby creating a secret room. There, they would hide the terrified Jews who were staying with them, in the event of a Nazi raid upon their home.
Eventually denounced by someone to the Nazis, the Ten Booms were arrested and their home raided and torn apart by the Gestapo, in their search for the Jews they believed to be hiding there. At the time of the raid, the Ten Boom home was filled to capacity with Jews in hiding. So well concealed was the hidden room that had been created by the erection of the false wall, that these poor, terrified Jews managed to escape detection.
The Ten Boom family did not fare so well. It was upon their arrest that they learned first hand of man's inhumanity to man, and their faith was put to a test that they had never dreamt possible. It was faith, however, that sustained the author in what was to be her darkest hour of deepest despair. To find out what happened to the Ten Booms, read this book. It is the story of an incredible family, who had the courage to put their convictions to the test.
This book is a masterpiece. The reader is sure to be captivated by the goodness and spiritual beauty contained within its pages.
