The Hiding Place free essay sample

The book The Hiding Place was about Corrie ten Boom’s life that took place in 1937 within the shadow of World War II and the rise of Nazism, which also happen to be the 100th anniversary of the founding of ten Boom watch shop. The ten Boom family was a highly respected one known for their deep religious faith and good will towards anyone who might need their help. However, the Dutch people believed that just as in World War I, their neutrality would be honored. Unfortunately, they greatly miscalculated the outcome and had to suffer through tough times. Corrie grew up in an old Dutch house where she was born which was the main setting for the book, which they will build a secret room that would hide Jews and political prisoners fleeing Nazi persecution. In the first few chapters in the book she begins to reminisce about her childhood life and the people in the community of Haarlem who valued her family with different personalities and attitudes towards life before the war that were great examples to Corrie. We will write a custom essay sample on The Hiding Place or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Corrie, her father, and her sister, Betsie, eventually had to face the Nazi invasion of Holland and became a part of the Resistance Movement. They provided a place for people who were fleeing the Nazis to live and a secret room for them to hide, in case the house was ever raided. During this time, Corrie often had doubts about whether her mission was wrong, but she always found her way back to the truth by relying on God. They practiced daily for the raid and continued to pray that it never happened. Unfortunately, that day did arrive as the result of a man who Corrie later learned was named Jan Vogel and was a Dutchman who collaborated with the Germans. The Jews hiding in the secret room were saved, but Corrie, her father, and Betsie were taken into custody. Father died ten days after his arrest and was buried in a pauper’s grave while Corrie and Betsie found themselves imprisoned first in Scheveningen Prison, a Dutch federal prison used by the Nazis. There, Corrie, who was ill when the arrest occurred, was kept in solitary for a month or two. | Later, the two women were transported to Vught Prison, where Corrie was finally able to catch up and be with Betsie. Corrie knew that Betsie, who had had a weak heart all her life, needed her now more than ever. In spite of being together at last, Corrie wished valiantly for release. Instead, they were soon transported in boxcars into eastern Germany and the infamous prison of Ravensbruck. Conditions there were horrifying, and gradually, Betsie became more and more ill. Betsie dies at Ravensbruck, but her visions of the future and her experience during the camps lead Corrie to find a ministry where she will tell what happened during their imprisonment, and how God and Jesus were always with them at their darkest hours. As a result, Corrie spends nearly the rest of her life setting up homes to help heal people damaged by the war, devoting a former concentration camp to the same purpose, and traveling to tell her story. Corrie was eventually released and sent back to Holland. It was only later in 1957, when she returned for the first time to Ravensbruck that she learned her release was a clerical error and that all women her age the next week were sent to the gas chambers. The journey home was long and difficult, but eventually Corrie arrived at Willem’s home first and then the Beje later. However, she was restless with whatever work she tried, from repairing and making watches to opening the Beje to the feeble-minded. Eventually, she began to speak to churches and other groups about her and Betsie’s experiences. It was at one of these speaking engagements that she met Mrs. Bierens de Haan, a wealthy woman who promised that if her son came home from Germany, she would open her mansion to fulfill Betsie’ dream. The son came home and Corrie readied the house for the hundreds of people who began filtering there to learn how to forgive those who had so horribly wronged them. She also opened up a former concentration camp for the same purpose. Corrie ten Boom only witnessed this horror from her own perspective and that of the Dutch, she accurately portrays how the Nazi regime systematically rounded up all those people they considered undesirable in their new state, including six million Jews, and exterminated them. The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning sacrifice by fire. [2] The Nazis believed that the Germans were a â€Å"superior race† and that any other race other than German is considered â€Å"inferior† which poses as a threat to the Germans. But hatred of the Jewish people did not start with the Nazi’s; Hitler used anti-Semitism which has been a movement that has already been circulating around Germany for quite some time before. The Nazi’s also believe in the Darwinian Evolutionary theory of survival of the fittest. For the Nazi’s believing that the Germans are already a superior race, therefore, keeping the purity of the gene pool added extra motivation anti-Semitism. The purpose the book served during the time of the holocaust is that it is a beacon of hope, God has used Corrie as a tool and an example to show how much grace and mercy God has made possible in her life. For example, Miracles are strongly inferred in the text. At one point, Corrie gets out of bed in the night and so avoids being hit by shrapnel (p. 7). When Corrie prays, an elderly asthmatic Jew in hiding stops wheezing (pp. 122–123). In Ravensbruck, a Bible gets smuggled past an inspection (p. 180), and a medicinal bottle keeps producing drops longer than it should (p. 189). Betsie’s body looks restored to health after death (p. 219). There are also a number of supernatural visions included in the story: Corrie has a vision of herself and some friends and relatives being taken away from the town square, before this really happens (p. 3); in Ravensbruck, Betsie has a vision of a large mansion being used to rehabilitate released prisoners, and of a camp being painted up and decorated, which come to pass through seeming coincidences after the war. Betsie also correctly predicts Corrie’s release date. These were Gods ways of using Corrie’s life as a testimony for his Glory. What I have found really interesting in this book is that from all the inhuman treatment of the Jewish people during the holocaust is how much faith Corrie has in God. There are no â€Å"if’s† in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of his will is our only safety. (pg 67)† this sentence explains that God is absolute, that there are things that Corrie have no control over what so ever, but only God can provide a solution. A great example of how God provided Corrie with strength was when Corrie was arrested and ill, and was kept in solitary confinement for a month or two. Every time she reached a moment of despair, God seemed to provide something to give her strength. For example, the only company she had other than a â€Å"hand† delivering her food tray through a slot in the cell wall each day was a black ant to whom she gave pieces of her bread. He provided an example of strength for her to follow as he struggled to take the bread back to his home through the crack in the floor, this serves as a reminder that God is on her side.