The Hiding Place- Corrie Ten Boom

The Hiding Place

Book report by Devon Riggan

The Hiding Place is about Corrie ten Boom, her family, and how they helped the Jews in Holland when Germany invaded Holland in World War II.

The main characters are Corrie, her older sisters Betsie and Nollie, her older brother Willem, and their father, Casper ten Boom, commonly referred to as Opa.

The book starts out in January of 1937, in Haarlem, Holland.

When Germany invaded Holland during the beginning of World War II, the Jews were the German soldiers and Adolf Hitler's main targets. Jews were required to wear a yellow star on their shirt, and if they walked around town during the day, they risked being taken into captivity by the German soldiers. This, among other racism against the Jews, infuriated Corrie and her family. If a person was caught helping to hide a Jew, they were also taken into captivity. Corrie and her family didn't care if they'd ever get caught. Her father once said, "I'd consider it an honor to give my life for just one of God's chosen people." Also, some of Corrie's dearest friends were Jews, and she wanted nothing but to keep them safe and away from harm.

During the course of World War II, Corrie and her family were part of the "Dutch Underground," a secret widespread group of people that would help to hide Jews and their families from the German soldiers. Corrie's family's house was the center of the "Dutch Underground." They had secret city-affiliated people that would help them with it, such as a meter man that would hide ration cards in the ten Boom's staircase. Dutch people needed ration cards to be able to eat while German had control over Holland, and ration cards were not issued to Jews. So Corrie would take the ration cards that were hidden and give them to Jews. After a year or so, Corrie and her family ran out of places to send Jews for hiding, so they were forced to keep 7 Jews in their own house.

A fellow "member" of the "Dutch Underground" warned the ten Boom family that if their house was ever to be searched by soldiers and they had Jews in their house, they'd be in trouble. For families living in the country this wasn't much of a problem, but the ten Boom house (the Beje), was located on the main street of the city and around the corner from the German headquarters! Since the Beje also served as a pretty famous watch store, this could also be a problem because random people could come in during open store hours. To fix this problem, a man offered to build a "secret room" located somewhere in the Beje. This room is where the Jews would hide if the Beje had been broken in and searched through by the Germans. The man had built the "secret room" into the back of Corrie's personal bedroom. When he was done, it was completely unnoticeable to the naked eye that there was a hidden room behind her bedroom wall. For months, the 7 Jews (Eusie, Jop, Henk, Leendert, Meta, Thea, and Mary) just slept in it.

On February 28th, 1944, the "Secret room" got its first and only time to actually hide the 7 Jews in