My senior year in high school, we had to do a long spoken presentation on a person that we felt was an influential Christian. Many people had chosen Billy Graham or other famous evangelists. Others chose missionaries or people in the Bible. I chose Corrie ten Boom.
Why choose Corrie? I loved to read and I had just finished reading the Diary of Anne Frank, Night and The Hiding Place. I wanted to learn more about the survivors. During my years in high school why had I never heard of the Holocaust? It was too important a piece of history to be left out of our curriculum. I was going to change that for my class. I chose Corrie so that I could use her story to share that part of history with my classmates that did not know what had happened.
Corrie ten Boom and her family were Christians living in Amsterdam in 1942 during World War II and Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands. During this time, the Nazis were arresting and detaining Jewish people in concentration camps, otherwise know as death camps.
Corrie and her family were Christians so they would not have been bothered by the Nazis as they swept through Holland looking for Jews. But the ten Boom family harbored Jewish refugees in their home in a "hiding place"
In 1944 an informant told the Nazis that the ten Booms had been helping Jews to evade detection from the Nazis. The ten Booms were all arrested but the six Jews that were in the "hiding place" evaded detection and survived.
Corrie and her family were sent to concentration camps throughout Europe. During this time Corrie's father and sister, Betsie were killed.
In the book, "The Hiding Place," Corrie details the terribel ordeal that she experienced at Ravensbruck concentration camp. Throughout this horrific experience, Corrie remained positive and encouraged and witnessed to many of her fellow prisoners. She wrote many of these famous quotes during her time suffering in the concentration camp.
No matter how bad the conditions were in the concentration camp, Corrie remained positive and trusted the Lord completely.
She stood in the face of torture and death on a daily basis and she was not afraid. She would encourage other prisoners with her quotes.
Corrie was eventually released from Ravensbruck in December of 1944. She found out later that her release was due to a clerical error. She was really supposed to be on the list to be killed the next week with the other prisoners her age. Her release was a mistake. God uses mistakes! This mistake saved Corrie's life!
After her release, Corrie went on to travel the world to speak about the Holocaust and her survival. Another strong theme in her speeches was forgiveness. She had even forgiven the guards from Ravensbruck concentration camp that killed her father and sister. Many people became Christians after listening to Corrie speak.
Corrie was a prolific writer and I encourage you to read her books. She is inspirational!!!! When you feel like life is too difficult and you disappointed in God, think of Corrie. She went through worse than any of us have and through it all she trusted and praised our Lord!
