Today I went on another “mommy field trip,” after a long hiatus, to the Corrie ten Boom Museum in Haarlem. When I first visited Haarlem last fall, we passed the museum and a friend recommended visiting. It took me a bit to get back, but it was worth it.
Prior to moving here, I had never heard of the ten Boom family, but it turns out this particular house saved the lives of approximately 80 Jewish people during WWII. In 1837, Corrie’s grandfather opened a watch shop on the ground floor, with the family living above.
In 1943, a Jewish shopkeeper arrived at the ten Boom’s looking for help after her house was raided and her husband arrested. She would become the first person they hid and helped secure safe passage. At any given time there would be up to six people staying at the house, for a mere few hours to a few days, as the ten Booms looked for a place they could safely hide.
In an effort to provide additional security, the family built a false wall in Corrie’s bedroom, where their “guests” could hide in the event of a raid. Here is the actual room, obviously with the wall open so you can see how truly tiny the space was. People had to crawl through the bottom shelf of the cupboard to access the spot and the last person in would close up the hatch.
Sadly, on February 28, 1944, the ten Boom family was betrayed and they, along with the bible study group they were hosting that evening were all arrested. But the police did not find the two Jewish men, two Jewish women, and two members of the Dutch underground who were hiding in the house. Corrie, her father, and her sister were initially taken to Scheveningen Prison, where her father died 10 days later. Corrie and her sister Betsy ended up at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Germany, where Betsie would later die.
Inexplicably, Corrie was released from Ravensbrück and spent the next forty-two years of her life traveling the world as a Christian evangelist. She visited more than 60 countries before passing away at the age of 91 in California.
Red, White and Tulips 