The Hiding Place

The Hiding Place, published in 1971, is by author Corrie ten Boom and co-authors John and Elizabeth Sherrill. Ten Boom’s autobiographical account centers on her family’s work with the Dutch underground during World War II and her family’s punishments after being arrested. The authors consistently draw attention to the ten Boom family’s Christian faith and the ways in which it shaped their experiences and inspired them to persevere.

Ten Boom wrote many other books after The Hiding Place, most of a devotional nature, and was well-known globally for speaking. She received honors for her work with the Dutch resistance, being named one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel. She also received a knighthood from the Netherlands.

Co-authors John and Elizabeth Sherrill assisted with two other popular religious memoirs: David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade and Brother Andrew’s God’s Smuggler. These works, along with The Hiding Place, have had considerable impact in evangelical circles.

The Hiding Place was adapted into a 1975 movie of the same title. Another film, Return to the Hiding Place (2013), expanded on the story of the Dutch resistance.

This study guide uses the mass-market paperback edition of The Hiding Place, produced in a series of printings from Bantam Books since 1974. Following the style of the book, this guide refers to The Netherlands as Holland. Character names also follow the style employed by the book (as, for instance, in the case of Casper ten Boom, who is referred to throughout the book as “Father”).

Content Warning: Both The Hiding Place and this study guide include references to subjects that some readers may find troubling, including warfare, imprisonment, torture, disease, and genocide.

Summary

The Hiding Place tells the story of Corrie ten Boom and her family during the years of the German occupation of Holland in World War II. It begins with Corrie’s idyllic childhood, introducing the reader to her parents and three siblings, Willem, Betsie, and Nollie. The family’s home is in Haarlem, where they live in a house called the Beje (pronounced “bay-yay”). The lower level of the house contains the family business: a clock shop. While the family is of modest means, their faith in God and their love for one another sustain them through the ups and downs of life. Of central importance to these early chapters is Corrie’s father, Casper. The book portrays him in saintly terms: wise, loving, and sincere, with a heartwarming affection for those around him and a deep devotion to his Christian faith.

Even before war breaks out against Holland, Corrie’s brother Willem, who lives nearby, is active in shuttling Jewish refugees to safe places around the countryside, foreshadowing the work that will eventually engage the whole family. When war breaks out, Corrie sees a vision of herself and other family members forcefully loaded onto a wagon to be carried away from Haarlem. She and the remaining family members in the Beje—Father and Betsie—continue their work at the clock shop but grow more concerned about the Nazis’ targeting of local Jewish individuals. The ten Boom family is sympathetic to the Jewish population in Haarlem. Father and Betsie also express love and prayer for the German soldiers, whom they see as victims, trapped by a great evil beyond their control.

Little by little, word gets out that people in need of refuge should go to the Beje house. The ten Booms connect with Willem’s network and the Dutch underground, placing Jewish individuals with families in the countryside. The Beje becomes a hub for the underground’s operations, with messengers coming and going through the clock shop every day. Corrie supplies ration cards and other assistance to the Jewish families seeking refuge. Eventually, the network runs out of places to hide people, and the ten Boom family hides Jewish individuals in their home. They outfit the house with a discreet alarm system and a hidden room in the wall behind Corrie’s bed. They run through many practices and drills, perfecting the art of hiding everyone away with just a moment’s notice.

The ten Boom family knows that they are likely to be discovered at some point. The house is raided while Corrie is sick with the flu. The Jewish individuals in their home hide in the secret room before the soldiers see them, but Corrie and her family are gathered and arrested, together with a few other members of the Dutch resistance. Corrie later learns that all of the Jewish individuals in the hidden room escaped after the raid, and most are safe through the end of the war. For herself, Betsie, and Father, the raid marks the end of their active work for the resistance and the beginning of a long incarceration.

After being held in a processing facility in Haarlem, they are sent away—in circumstances similar to Corrie’s vision. In Scheveningen prison, Father passes away and Corrie endures long weeks of solitary confinement. Corrie manages to smuggle portions of the Bible with her, and it becomes her main source of solace and inspiration. She and Betsie are transferred to a labor prison in Vught, and then again to the notorious concentration camp of Ravensbruck, deep in German territory, where they are forced to undertake grueling workloads. Betsie’s health deteriorates rapidly, but she and Corrie continue to encourage each other.

In their barracks, they offer prayer and Bible reading for the other prisoners. They dream of what God might have them do after their release. Betsie envisions a ministry of compassionate rehabilitation, both for victims of the war and for the oppressors, a place where they can learn the restorative power of love. In the waning weeks of 1944, Betsie passes away in the Ravensbruck hospital. Corrie receives a release notice just a few days later. It appears to have been granted in error, as all the women Corrie’s age were shortly sent to the gas chambers.

Corrie works her way by train back to Holland, where her other siblings are still living in relative freedom. When the war ends, she takes up a ministry of public speaking, telling of Father and Betsie’s faith in the midst of the war’s atrocities. These speaking engagements lead to openings for Betsie’s visions to become a reality—first a house in Holland where survivors of the war can rehabilitate, then the Beje taking on a new role as a ministry to former Nazi collaborators. Finally, a German concentration camp itself becomes a rehabilitation center. Corrie finds that she is able to forgive, in a face-to-face encounter, a former Ravensbruck guard, a development that she credits to the grace of God alone.