The convoluted mixture of events (including the bleak shadows of World War I and failures in diplomacy between countries) and ideologies (such as Nazism and Fascism) led to dark, ominous metaphorical clouds over Europe in the formative years leading up to the invasion of Poland by Germany on the the first of September, 1939. This caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany, and the world and it’s inhabitants were changed forever.

There are millions of stories from around the world of lives irrevocably altered by Adolph Hitler’s (who was Nazi Germany’s ruthless dictator from 1933 until the 30th of April in 1945, when he suicided, thus ending World War II in Europe) deliberate, merciless and vehemently harmful and dangerous doctrines. These ideas led to the occurrence of the Holocaust, wherein  millions of Jews in Europe were arrested and imprisoned. Six million of these Jews (including children) were either killed by the Nazis (the fearsome network of soldiers under Hitler’s command) or died of starvation, disease or injuries in the concentration camps of Europe, overseen by the Nazis.

The timeless (and timely) memoir (first published in 1972) by Dutch woman, Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place, captures this time in history from one who was actually there. And lived to tell the tale.

The alarming dissonance the events of the war created even in (at first) neutral Holland swept the ever-caring and stoic Dutch watchmaker’s daughter, Corrie, (born 1892) and her loyal family, along with them.

 Living in a notable and old house known as the ‘Beje’, in Haarlem (a city outside of Amsterdam in the northwest area of the Netherlands),

Corrie, her older sister by seven years, Betsie, and their father, Casper, spent their days in a perfectly predictable pattern of working in the shop where people came from far and wide to buy clocks and watches, and have them fixed.

As they celebrated the one hundredth birthday of the business in 1937, Corrie felt, looking back, as she recalled this time in her once-ordered life, “It was a day for memories. A day for calling up the past. How could we have guessed as we sat there – two middle-aged spinsters and an old man – that in place of memories we were about to be given adventure such as we had never dreamed of? Adventure and anguish, horror and heaven were just around the corner, and we did not know. Oh Father! Betsie! If I had known would I have gone ahead? Could I have done the things I did?”.

It transpired that Corrie, 47 years old, Betsie, 54, years old, and Casper, 80 years old, when the war broke out, were to become quite fearless, highly respected and doggedly determined members of the Dutch underground and resistance movements during those dark days. Days when Nazi soldiers overran the streets of Holland and much of Europe.

Corrie’s and Betsie’s work for the resistance included hiding Jews from the Nazis in their welcoming home (a special, secret room was built for this purpose), delivering messages and helping the persecuted Jews and anyone in danger from the menacing force of the Nazis (such as young men being sent to work in German-run factories) in the area to get to safe farm houses in the country, where they were less likely to be found.

Interestingly, the Dutch resistance movement was largely non-violent. Their tactics to thwart the efforts of the Nazis included acts of espionage, the sabotage of German property, cutting phone lines, delivering messages, the publication of underground newspapers and assisting Allied forces.

The bravery of the ten Booms (they were a special family) was so great, as we learn that the price for hiding and assisting Jews and those in danger of persecution during the war was to be sent away to a much-feared and dreaded Nazi-run concentration camp (we now know that so many of those who entered those camps never came out).

When the ten Booms were betrayed, and their house taken over by German soldiers (“Tell me now, where are you hiding the Jews?” a soldier yelled at Corrie), Corrie, Betsie and Casper were taken away (miraculously the Jews in the hiding place in the house were never found, and escaped).

Corrie and Betsie cruelly found themselves transported to the abhorrent Vught concentration camp in. the Netherlands. Later it was the spiritually (as well as physically) dark and cold concentration camp in Germany called Ravensbruck, a camp for women only, located 90 km north of Berlin.

History now tells us that “Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 44, 000 camps and other incarceration sites (including ghettos). The perpetrators used these locations for a range of purposes, including forced labor, detention of people deemed to be “enemies of the state”, and mass murder. Millions of people suffered and died or were killed. Among these sites was the Ravensbruck camp for women”.

Corrie has described her first site of Ravensbruck, “Now we were close enough to see the skull-and-crossbones posted at intervals on the walls to warn of electrified wiring along the top”.

Corrie and Betsie, along with all the thousands of prisoners in Ravensbruck, endured endless days of physical, mental, emotional and verbal abuse. The threat of death, starvation and disease was ever-present, and prisoners had to work shoveling dirt, doing menial labor and sleeping in cramped and sardine-like ‘beds’. Additionally, there was the frosty temperatures and not enough warm clothes or warm bedding for prisoners.

Imagine roll call in the dark at 4.30a.m. in these conditions, and a whistle waking you up at 4.00am. This is what the inmates had to endure. Even in winter. It must have been such an awful time for all those in that situation. It must have been hell.

One day, whilst working outside shoveling dirt, Betsie (very sick and feeble) was attacked, mocked and ridiculed by the guard, “Schneller! a guard screamed at her. “Can’t you go any faster?”….The guard snatched Betsie’s shovel from her hands and ran from group to group of the digging crew, exhibiting the handful of dirt that was all Betsie had been able to lift……”Look what Madame Baroness is carrying! Surely she will over-exert herself!”

The other guards and even some of the prisoners laughed………The guard’s plump cheeks went crimson. “I’ll decide who’s to stop!” And snatching the leather crop from her belt she slashed Betsie across the chest and neck” “.

Betsie responded to Corrie after Corrie went to use her shovel on the guard. “Betsie saw where I was looking and laid a bird-thin hand over the whip-mark. “Don’t look at it, Corrie. Look at Jesus only”. She drew away her hand: it was sticky with blood”.

The ten Booms were all Christians, and their faith sustained them through the long, dark days and nights of the war. It was behind their motivation for helping the Jews and others before they themselves were arrested. It prompted them to conduct bible studies and prayer meetings in their barracks in Ravensbruck. Gathering that women from many nationalities attended, needing something to believe in.

Betsie told Corrie before the end of the war that ” (We)…must tell people what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He (God) is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here”.

As we now know, the war finally and mercifully did end in Europe in April 1945.

We know that Corrie survived her wartime captivity. Did Betsie make it to the other side? Did Casper? What about Corrie’s big brother, Willem, and his family? What happened to them? What about her sister, Nollie, and her family?

Many people don’t think about the fact that even when there war was over, there was still unprecedented suffering and mayhem in Europe. Many cities had been bombed, and food and other resources were scarce. In Germany, Corrie has written, there were nine million homeless people in the war’s troublesome aftermath, a dark shadow sitting over that country for a long time.

Not only did Corrie survive the war, she went on to have a wonderful life. She touched the lives of millions as she travelled the world speaking about her experiences during the war and the power of forgiveness.

In a time of strong hate and often cowardice, they sought to love and help others. They were prepared to give their lives for the hated, downtrodden and outcast.

The Hiding Place book has been read by millions around the world since it was first published and has affected, for the better, many people. Far better is this book than any history book written by a third person. Corrie actually lived it. She saw events unfold first hand. And her book is a poignant and heartbreaking testimony of what lengths humankind were (and indeed still are) capable of going to to inflict harm and oppression on each other.

We know that war and the dismissal of the value and dignity that all human life deserves are still going on our world today. It seems that humans have not learnt from the past. And they should have by now.

The Hiding Place should be mandatory reading in all high schools throughout the world (it’s subject matter is too heavy I think for primary school children). Indeed, I think all people, from all countries and walks of life should read this book. Once you have read it, you won’t be able to forget it.

I would have loved to have met Corrie. She must have been an amazing person. I implore everyone to read this book. The lessons of those turbulent times in which Corrie and her family lived we must learn from, not repeat and never, ever forget.