'Precious Books...
Clutched Between My Hands'

byPaul Kroll

In September 1944, Corrie ten Boom, after being imprisoned by the Gestapo for aiding Jews, was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. Through this time of trial, the living words of Jesus Christ sustained her spirit.

THE TEN BOOM FAMILY was from the small city of Haarlem in Holland. the center of their work was a small shop for repairing watches, run from home by the elderly ten Boom father and two daughters, Betsie and Corrie. Their triumphant story was documented a quarter of a century ago in the book The Hiding Place. This ever popular story of the ten Boom family's accomplishments has been reprinted many times.

The ten Booms were the unlikeliest of heroes. At the time, Corrie was 50, her sister was seven years older, and father ten Boom was 80.

Yet heroes they were. The ten Booms lodged numerous Jews on a temporary basis. They then spirited them out to safe houses throughout the Dutch countryside. A brother, Willem, and another sister, Nollie, also participated in helping Jews. Ultimately, some 80 dutch citizens - from elderly women to teenage boys - participated in the ten Boom 'cell'. It was called, affectionately, 'God's underground'.

Beginning in May 1942 - and for more than a year and a half - they led, as Corrie put it, 'double lives'. On the surface, the ten Booms ran a struggling shop for repairing watches. But the shop was the hub of an underground organisation whose spokes radiated throughout Holland.

The ten Booms knew it would be only a matter of time before the Nazis would discover them. On 28 the February 1944, their worst fears came true.

The Gestapo raided the watch shop. Willem, Corrie, Betsie, Nollie, their elderly father and others were arrested and taken to the police station. The ten Booms were then transported at Scheveningen, Holland.

Happily, Willem and Nollie were released within a few weeks. But father ten Boon - 'Opa' as the 80-year-old gentleman was affectionately known - died in prison 10 days after his arrest. When Corrie received the news, she scratched the following on the prison wall behind her cot: '9th March 1944. Father released.'

Concentration Camp

In September of 1944, Betsie and Corrie were transported to the German concentration camp for women at Ravernsbruck, Germany. Here they suffered the same terrible privations and fears so movingly portrayed in the film Schindler's List. Betsie and Corrie were dehumanised into mere numbers, Prisoner 66729 and Prisoner 66730.

Betsie died in the camp at Ravensbruck in late December 1944, an eerie shell of skin and bone. Corrie described her sister as she lay on a cot:
'It was a carving in old yellow ivory. There was no clothing on the figure; I could see each ivory rib, and the parchment cheeks. It took me a moment to realise it was Betsie' (The Hiding Place, page 218). Corrie's life was saved when she was released on New Year's Day in 1945 because of a clerical error. One week after her release, all women her age at Ravensbruck were sent to the gas chambers.

Few times of gloom have been darker than the Holocaust of World War II. It threatened to extinguish spiritual light and destroy all that is good - truth, mercy, justice, life and faith. Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, who survived Auschwitz and then Buchenwald, wrote of what the Holocaust could do to a human being.

He said in his book Night: 'Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
'Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.
'Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.
'Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust' (page32).

Light of God's Word

Yet, Corrie ten Boom and her sister found light in that blackest of concentration camp nights that saved their faith in God, even as Betsie wasted away and died. While Corrie was still in a prison in her native Holland, she became ill and was taken to a hospital. A sympathetic nurse asked if she could help her.

Corrie asked for several items, including a Bible, not really expecting to receive anything. But the nurse later slipped a small package to her. Corrie described in her book what she found when she unwrapped it. There it was - 'Not indeed a whole Bible, but in four small booklets, the four gospels' (The Hiding Place, page 146).

Corrie called these 'the precious books I clutched between my hands.' Here, then, was the God given gift that would sustain her and Betsie through the worst of times in the prison camp. In those Gospels, we find a profound statement by Jesus: 'The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life' (John 6:63). Those were the very words that spoke to Corrie and her sister - and can speak to us as well.

The Bible became a precious lifeline for Corrie. Betsie and others at the concentration camp. 'Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire,' she wrote in The Hiding Place, 'we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God' (page 194).

God in His Word

Corrie described life at Ravensbruck as living on two different planes. The black world of the camp was horrific, capable of destroying mind and body. But the words of Scripture portrayed a different world to them - a world of the spirit of light, of life and truth.

The Bible was like a newly-written book to Corrie. The Scriptures described and spoke to the life-and-death world she lived in. She wrote: 'It was simply a description of way things were - of hell and heaven, of how men act and how God acts. I had read a thousand times the story of Jesus' arrest - how soldiers had slapped Him, laughed at Him, flogged Him. Now such happenings had faces and voices' (page 195).

A Living Book

The Bible became a living book to Corrie. There in its pages, God spoke to Corrie's pain, suffering, fear - and hope. The way Corrie described the meaning of the words of Scripture while in prison demands only one conclusion. Christ was with her and Betsie Through that word In the prison camp, meditating their suffering and their hope.

Christ's words brought wholeness to Corrie's and Betsie's brokenness, blazing like a blinding spiritual light in rank darkness.

To us as well, the words of Jesus Christ can bring healing and hope, light and truth - even to the blackest darkness of our lives. Our part is simply to respond to these words of life.

The Hiding Place The Hiding Place, a film produced in 1975, is based on the best-selling book by the same name. It is a gripping look at the true story of the ten Boom family. Refusing to deny their faith in Christ, the ten Booms opened their doors to Jews and others in Holland seeking refuge from Nazi oppression. The ten Booms ran 'God's underground,' helping people escape from the Nazis for a year and a half before the Gestapo raided their home. After the dramatic scene in which the family is arrested by the Gestapo, the film focuses almost exclusively on two of the sisters, Betsie and Corrie. Taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp, the women become an inspiration to their fellow prisoners, teaching them that 'no pit is so deep that He (Jesus) is not deeper still.' Betsie died in Ravensbruck, but Corrie was released on New Year's Day in 1945 because of clerical error. She spent the remaining years of her life speaking to anyone who would listen. Her message was always the same: 'No pit is so deep that Jesus is not deeper still.' At the end of the film the 80-year-old Corrie ten Boom reflects on her life and the strength she gained from her relationship with Jesus. The Hiding Place was filmed at authentic sites in Holland and other European countries. -Bill Palmer