CORRIE TEN BOOM

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.

Corrie ten Boom was born on April 15, 1892, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as the youngest of four children. The family moved to Haarlem 8 months after Corrie was born. Her mother died of a stroke at the age of 63. Her father Casper ten Boom was a well-liked watch repairman, and often referred to as "Haarlem's Grand Old Man". Her older sister, Elisabeth (Betsie), was born with pernicious anemia. They had two siblings - a sister, Nollie, and a brother, Willem. They lived in a house on Barteljorisstraat 19 with three of her mother's sisters: Aunt, or Tante, Jans (pronounced 'yunss'), Anna and Bep. Willem graduated from a theology school and warned the Dutch that unless they took action, they would fall to the Nazis. He wrote a dissertation on racial anti-Semitism at theological college in 1927 in preparation for his ordination. He married a woman named Tine and had four children. Nollie, a school teacher, married Flip van Woerden, a fellow teacher, and they had six children; one son, named Peter, was a musical child prodigy. Corrie and Betsie never married. Corrie fell in love with a man named Karel, but his family's intentions that he "marry well" interfered with their romance.

Corrie began training as a watchmaker in 1920 and in 1922 became the first female watchmaker licensed in the Netherlands. She was a very devout Christian and an active member of the Dutch Reformed church. In 1923, she helped organize girls' clubs, and in the 1930s these clubs grew to become the very large Triangle Club.

In 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and banned Corrie ten Boom's club. In 1942, she and her family had become very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees. They rescued many Jews from the Nazi SS. They helped Jews because of their veneration for those they believed were God's chosen people (though the Ten Boom family was known for their gracious character towards all, especially the handicapped), and provided kosher food and honored the Jewish Sabbath.

The Germans arrested the entire Ten Boom family on February 28, 1944 at around 12:30 with the help of a Dutch informant. They were sent first to Scheveningen prison (where her father died ten days after his capture). Corrie's sister Nollie, brother Willem, and nephew Peter were all released. Later, Corrie and Betsie were sent to the Vught political concentration camp (both in the Netherlands), and finally to the notorious Ravensbruck concentration camp in germany on December 16, 1944, where Corrie's sister Betsie died. Before she died she told Corrie, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." Corrie was released on New Year's Eve of December 1944. In the movie The Hiding Place, Ten Boom narrates the section on her release from camp, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error. The women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release. She said, "God does not have problems. Only plans."

In 1977, Corrie ten Boom, then 85 years old, moved to Orange, California. Successive strokes in 1978 took away her powers of speech and communication and left her an invalid for the last five years of her life. She died on her 91st birthday, April 15, 1983.