Hard Earned Wisdom
“You can never learn that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have.” (Corrie ten Boom, concentration camp survivor).
Frustrating the Nazis during World War II
Corrie ten Boom’s family looked on in horror when the occupying Nazis started rounding up the Jews in Holland and shipping them far away. Soon these courageous Christians began hiding Jews in their home or smuggling them into the surrounding countryside.
Betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo, the Nazis eventually sent Corrie and her older sister Betsy to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp in Germany. Ten days after his arrest, their 80-year-old watchmaker father died, while lying untreated in a hospital hallway.
A Hellish Place on Earth
Upon entering the concentration camp, Corrie lost everything.
- Her Freedom: the Nazis took total control of all of Corrie’s choices. Her diet, sleeping quarters, work detail, even where she stood or when she woke.
- Her Identity: Corrie became known as Prisoner 66730 to her prison guards.
- Her Future: Seeing smoke arise from the Nazis’ crematorium reinforced one horrible truth; Corrie and her sister could be killed at any time.
- Her Career: Corrie became the first woman trained as a watchmaker in Holland. Now she was nobody.
- Her Clothes: Stripped of everything she’d brought with her, Corrie wore only the thin prison dress the Nazis provided.
- Her Country: Holland? A fading dream. Only the present, painful reality of the camp felt real.
Yet Jesus traveled with Corrie and her sister Betsy to Ravensbruck.
They didn’t know it, but they were on divine assignment and He had work for them to do.
Sovereign even in a Nazi Death Camp
After months confined in a Dutch prison, the ten Boom sisters were forcibly deported to a death camp in Germany. In a few hours, she and Betsy would join the general prison population.
They had a Bible, but how could they keep it?
Shower Room Security
The Germans required each woman to strip off every bit of clothing she possessed and walk naked past a dozen guards into the shower room. Moments later, she’d emerge wearing only a thin prison dress. Because of God’s goodness, Corrie managed to hide the Bible in the shower room ahead of time. Coming out in her prison issued dress, this precious life-changing book hung in a cloth bag between Corrie’s shoulder blades.
But there was a new obstacle.
At the exit, the guards patted down each prisoner, front, back and sides.
The Bible bulged under her thin dress. The Nazi guards couldn’t possibly miss it!
A Special Divine Honor Guard
Quickly, Corrie prayed and asked God to surround her with His angels.
But suddenly she realized that angels, being spirits, are transparent. Anyone can see through an angel. Yet her greatest need was to be hidden from the guards’ sight.
Desperately, she prayed
Lord, make your angels un-transparent.
And God answered!
The woman in front of Corrie was searched. So was Betsy, standing behind her. But the guards didn’t even look at Corrie
They seemed not to see her.
Soon the ten Booms started conducting underground Bible studies and sharing the gospel with women who would soon die.
Many became Christ-followers and Barracks 28 became known throughout the concentration camp as that “crazy place, where they hope.”
Resources:
Corrie’s autobiographical book, The Hiding Place, has become a Christian Classic.
