The Ten Boom Museum – Betsie and Corrie ten Boom

Scroll down about halfway, if you’d prefer to eschew the long, somewhat tedious, personal introduction.

[Updated: Visit the ten boom Museum website for a fantastic 360-degree, narrated tour—you’ll feel like you are right there (be sure to enter the hiding place itself, in Corrie’s bedroom)]

The trip that we just took to Europe was all about family. As you know, the primary reason to be there was to celebrate The Belgian Wonder’s parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Before and after that event, we were with other members of his big family, sharing meals, chatting, and generally catching up. It’s been, after all, three years since we were last with them. All of The Belgian Wonder’s 13 nieces and nephews have changed dramatically in that time, and it was our first time meeting the youngest member of the family, a nephew.

As a result of this people-time-priority, we did very little sightseeing and even less shopping.

However, after the 50th, when we were in Holland staying at CenterParcs, the family asked us if we wanted to do anything in addition to visiting the beach and enjoying the CenterParcs facilities (such as its indoor water park). Did we want to see anything special? Visit a cheese-making farm, perhaps, or an historic old windmill?

I said that I’d love to visit the Corrie ten Boom museum in Haarlem and then go to Amsterdam and tour the Anne Frank house. In the several visits to Europe we’ve made in 17 years of marriage, we had never made it up there. It was about a two-hour drive from where we were staying.

As it turned out, everyone was interested in going, even if they only ate ice cream in the city centers while we took the tours. We were glad we didn’t have to lose a day with these people we see so rarely and want to build memories with, in order to see the two sights.

All together, our group added up to 24 people, 11 of them children.

To get that many people out the door packed for a day outing in the vans and cars caravaning two hours to Haarlem (we planned to park our vehicles in Haarlem and take a 30-minute train ride to Amsterdam afterward) was quite a feat. Not surprisingly, we got a bit of a late start and had to make a couple of pitstops en route. All to be expected, of course.

We parked by the train station, where we bore witness to the fact that Dutch people really do use their bikes (snapped through the van windshield):

Then we rushed to get to the museum.

When we got to the door, the English tour was about to begin. Whew! We were just in time.

We started to enter, but the tour guide started pushing the door shut. “Sorry,” she said, “but this tour is full. We can’t take anyone else. Sorry.” Thump. The door shut.

We stared for a moment, unsure what to do. Just then, another guy brushed past us, explaining in English, “We made arrangements beforehand and reserved this time.” He knocked, spoke to the guide who cracked open the door, then slipped in and pressed the door shut behind him.

On the green door hung a little sign with two clocks on it, one for the Dutch tours and the other for English:

“Next English tour: 3:30 p.m.”

It was early in the day, and we were faced with a decision: should we skip the Ten Boom museum and go to Amsterdam, stand in line for the Anne Frank house, and risk such a long wait that we might have to leave without seeing it, too? Should we give up Anne Frank and figure out how to spend an entire day in the small town of Haarlem until the 3:30 tour, which would mean getting back very late? Or should we scrap all the plans and return to the indoor waterslides?

Here’s the outdoor plaque posted on the exterior wall. I got the sinking feeling that this was all I’d capture of the museum (click to enlarge):

Nobody wanted to make the final decision, because I (and our immediate family, but particularly I) was the main one who wanted to take the tour. I felt utterly incapable of making the decision–I didn’t want to be the one forcing all those small children to hang around the city with nothing to do for a day just so that I could see the museum. But I also wanted to do this one thing very badly. All we could agree on was lunch. We walked out to the town square and ate sandwiches next to a big sculpture:

To buy time and do something fun, someone proposed we take a canal boat ride and see the city. The conclusion gradually seemed to be that we would take the ride and then head on back to CenterParcs. It appeared that we would pass on both the Ten Boom museum and the Anne Frank house.

On the canal boat, I worked hard to accept this reality. I handed the camera to The Belgian Wonder, who takes better photos than I, and asked him to snap some shots on the ride. He went to the back where most of our group was sitting, and I stayed toward the front to hear the narration.

As we passed a beautiful windmill at a fabulous angle, I leaned over to see if he was getting a nice shot of it–but he was on a borrowed cell phone making a call! I waited to see if he would finish and get a shot, and he hung up just in time to snap a good one, which was the centerpiece of one of my postcards from Holland.

The Belgian Wonder continued snapping photos on the ride, and eventually moved back into the front to report that he somehow convinced the good people at the Ten Boom museum to change their schedule around so that we could tour it at 2:30 instead of 3:30. This meant that we could finish the canal ride and go straight to the house, take the tour, and get our 24 people home at a reasonable hour.That’s the story of how I had to sacrifice Amsterdam and the Anne Frank house, but was able to see the Ten Boom museum after all.

I just wanted you to know how challenging it was to pull off, and how extra-pleased I am to offer you the following virtual tour. Here is the ten Boom living room, where the tour began:

We walked up some narrow stairs and gathered in the living room. I whispered to The Belgian Wonder, “Take a lot of photos.” In this peaceful, tranquil space, as the tour guide began telling us the ten Boom family history, The Belgian Wonder was snapping away as subtly as possible.

He even took photos of the family portraits on the walls:

In the bottom left photo, you can see a shot of the room that we were in, looking very much the same. The windows have that same decorative top as they did long ago.

Corrie organized and led a Christian girls’ club in the home before the war, something like Girl Scouts. The photos below show her with some of the girls in their uniforms:

After giving an overview of Corrie’s story and explaining how the family got involved with the Resistance, the tour guide took us up the extremely narrow, tight stairs to Corrie’s bedroom, the location of the Hiding Place. To form the space, the ten Booms smuggled bricks in, a few at a time, to create a false wall.

The wall would have been, of course, solid. Somebody at some point took out a section for visitors to see (and climb) inside:

The room with the shaft of light streaming in seemed so serene. Such a contrast to the reason for the Hiding Place–to protect people in a time of terror.

The design was ingenious, building a simple cupboard on the left as a secret entrance:

The Jews in hiding would open the cupboard and climb through the back of the bottom shelf. The back raised and lowered from the inside. Once everyone climbed through, they placed a basket with linens to fill that spot, lowered the door, and from the outside, it looked like a simple cupboard against a brick wall:

I climbed in after everyone else had a turn.

The guide said that with lots of practice drills, the people they were hiding could get to the Hiding Place in 70 seconds after the alarm was sounded. This included stripping the sheets (taking the sheets in with them) and flipping the mattress, if they were in bed (so that no body heat could be felt), or scooping up all dishes, cups, napkins, and eating utensils if it happened while eating.

On the fateful day that the Gestapo came, the six people they were protecting made it to the Hiding Place safely. The ten Booms would put an Alpina sign in the window when it was safe for people to come to the house who were part of the Resistance. If not, they’d pull the sign out. This is the sign:

That day, when the Gestapo came up the very alley where we waited outside for the tour, they pounded on the heavy green door. Betsie snatched the Alpina sign from the window. Sadly, one of the Gestapo saw her do that and figured it was a signal. When they entered to search, he placed it back in the window, and a few more people came to the house thinking it was safe and were taken in for interrogation.

The Gestapo found the spot where the ten Booms hid their extra ration cards and false passports. It was in the stairway:

But they couldn’t find the people. They knew that they were in the house, but they just couldn’t figure out where. Then they decided to starve them out. The people were stuck in the Hiding Place for two-and-a-half days without water, while the Gestapo posted guards, waiting.

One day, a Dutch police officer was put on duty. Little did the Germans know, he was part of the Resistance. He found a chance to get them out, so he helped them onto the roof and through a window into the neighbors’ house, who helped them escape. They all made it out, and the Dutch police officer disappeared until after the war, as well, because he would have been found out.

Here’s the view of the neighbor’s roof (the lower orange roof). The window was blocked off at some point over the years, but it’s the same building:

Here’s the view from the roof in a couple of directions, which was interesting to see even if we weren’t imagining a fearful bunch of Jewish people quietly climbing through to safety:

We passed through the remaining room, where the attic access was (the dark spot upper center):

Several photos were under the cases, including a sampling of the ration cards they had to secure in order to feed the people they were protecting:

Also, there were photos of Corrie with a wide variety of people throughout the world where she had spoken the message of salvation and hope and forgiveness after the war.

There was this photo of some of the people who had stayed with the ten Booms, Jewish people who had come to them for protection:

It was for these people (and others) that the ten Booms risked and sacrificed their lives. Corrie is the only one from her family who made it out alive, after eleven months in concentration camps.

In the dining room, where the signal clock sat in the window, the tour guide turned our attention to the back side of a tapestry that Corrie often used as an illustration (sorry about the glare):

It’s just a big mess of strings, all different colors wadded up in no pattern or form. Then he read a poem that she herself would read when showing the tapestry. I think it’s this one that I found online:

Life is But a Weaving

My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colors

He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;

And I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper

And I the underside.

Not ‘til the loom is silent

And the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unroll the canvas

And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful

In the weaver’s skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern He has planned

He knows, He loves, He cares;

Nothing this truth can dim.

He gives the very best to those

Who leave the choice to Him.

Then he had someone flip it around to the front side:

A crown of life.

Corrie’s received hers.

And offered it directly back to the Savior, I’m sure.

What a life. I loved, when reading The Hiding Place, how real she was. Her sister, Betsie, was so pure and childlike in her faith, trusting the Lord at His Word so simply and earnestly, praying continually. Corrie was the one exclaiming, “Fleas!” Corrie was the one who wailed, “Betsie, how can we live in such a place!”

But Betsie immediately began to pray, “Show us. Show us how.” Corrie wrote, “More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie” (p. 197, The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, Bantam Books, New York, NY, copyright 1971) Betsie is the one who said to thank God for the fleas. Corrie is the one who  was aghast. “This was too much,” she wrote. “‘Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.'”

But Betsie insisted that the verse says to give thanks in all circumstances, not just in pleasant circumstances.

Corrie prayed. But she was sure that Betsie was wrong.

And of course later they realized that the reason they had so much freedom to worship and pray and study God’s Word and sing was because of….the fleas.

Anyway, I tell that famous story only because I love how this extraordinary woman, Corrie ten Boom, was also quite ordinary–at least she presented herself that way. And she found herself in “such a time as this,” and rose to the occasion by faith.

As a result, she got to see the Lord work in her life in extraordinary ways.

After the war, she spoke about forgiveness in all kinds of settings. The most dramatic occasion was when she returned to Germany with that same message, and a guard, one of their first jailers, approached her.

“How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away.”

He stuck out his hand to shake hers. She preached the need to forgive, but kept her hand at her side. As angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through her for the horror, pain, and suffering he caused, she “saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.”

She struggled to raise her hand. She felt no spark of warmth or charity. She couldn’t forgive the man…not on her own.”

Jesus, I cannot forgive him,” she prayed. “Give me Your forgiveness.”Then she described what happened next:

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself. (p. 238, ibid.)

The ten Boom house was a place of Christian prayer, protection, safety, love, faith, and forgiveness. And I felt so privileged to finally be able to  walk through it and almost feel it.

I was flipping through the book The Hiding Place and saw this quote from Betsie:

“There are no ‘if’s’ in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety–O Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!” (p. 67, ibid)

O friends, I think that both Betsie and Corrie would want us to ask for the same thing:

Let us pray that we may always know God’s will, and always be at the center of it.

* * *

If you haven’t read The Hiding Place, please consider purchasing it today using my affiliate link (click on the image):

Also, introduce your children to Corrie and Betsie ten Boom by reading them Gutsy Girls, Book Two: Sisters Corrie and Betsie ten Boom (for affiliate link, click on image):