The Hiding Place
by Corrie Ten Boom
Reviewed by: Ralph Bender, MBA, CFP®
“Young and old, poor and rich, scholarly gentlemen and illiterate servant girls—only to father did it seem that they were all alike. That was father’s secret: not that he overlooked the differences in people; that he didn’t know they were there.”
Corrie ten Boom’s father and sister perished at the hands of the Nazis, and while the book chronicles the entire ten Boom family’s involvement and sacrifices, it also presents their reasons. Their lives demonstrated the sacrificial love taught in the scriptures, and her sister Betsy’s final scenes in Ravensbrück concentration camp prove the power of reading God’s Word.
ten Boom is consistently humble about her own lifestyle, skills, capabilities, and accomplishments, so much so that the reader easily forgets that this woman, who had every worldly thing stripped from her by the Nazi tormentors, had life-changing impact on others.
In addition to educating readers on European life in the first half of the twentieth century, it provides a view of faith in action. It is impossible to imagine the moral strength of being present under capricious authoritarian rule, unwavering in the face of impending death surrounded by murder. But for ten Boom, “It would have been unthinkable to squander two activities on the same bit of time!”
Tracking #412426-1