World War II Database

Having previously learned a lot from biographies and autobiographies of resistance fighters, I overlooked the fact that the audio book edition of The Hiding Place was released by a religious publisher and thought I would give it a try. My thoughts about this book were mixed.

Corrie ten Boom was a homemaker and her father's watch repair shop's bookkeeper. When the Germans occupied their home city of Haarlem, the Netherlands, the ten Boom family, deeply religious and believing in offering help to those in need, offered their home to hide Jews. Almost by accident, they became involved in the Dutch resistance, smuggling ration cards and coordinating the concealment and movement of Jews. Before long, they were discovered, arrested, and sent to Scheveningen prison in the Netherlands and then Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Germany. Corrie ten Boom would survive her imprisonment, unlike many of her fellow inmates.

The Hiding Place was ten Boom's autobiography. She devoted about the first third of the book setting up the story of her family from the time of her childhood, diving into such inconsequential matters such as her aunt's conservative style of clothing, her father's poor bookkeeping skills, and her nephew's talent in music. As one who was interested primarily in her telling of the German invasion and occupation, I thought the first few chapters were of little interest, the only usefulness being the introduction of a small number of characters who would later become her comrades in the resistance.

The pace quickly picked up with the arrival of the Germans, however. The fact that the author and her family, all honest to a fault, had become members of the Dutch resistance in the concealment of Jews was surprising. As later events would illustrate, when confronted by German secret policemen, ten Boom's sister Nollie would be unable lie due to the family's religious beliefs and openly admitted where the Jews were hiding in the supposedly "safe" house. While I yearned for more decisive defiance, which was rarely offered, I was also repeatedly disappointed by episodes of tension resolving anti-climatically. When Corrie ten Boom was approached by the Haarlem chief of police, for example, who wanted to use her connections in the resistance to eliminate a known quisling in the city police force, the two plotters decided to pray for the quisling and take no further action. In convincing the police chief that "thou shalt not kill", this action (or inaction?) likely doomed an unknown number Jews and resistance fighters, and left me in utter disbelief as I finished said chapter. While the author vividly described the horror of disease, malnutrition, and cruel guards, I also shook my head repeatedly by her naive attributions of their good planning, such as being smart enough to smuggle into imprisonment a bottle of medicine, to miracles by god, which was her explanation of the bottle dispensing enough medicine to save many lives.

I had reviewed this title in its audio format, which was read by Bernadette Dunne. Dunne portrayed ten Boom wonderfully, speaking in the pace of an older woman and stressing at all the right places, allowing me to feel that it was ten Boom who was personally telling me stories from her war time experiences.

Corrie ten Boom, ordinary in the pre-war years, undoubtedly transformed herself into an extraordinary heroine. Her and her family's courage saved many lives, Jews and Gentiles alike. Her book The Hiding Place, however, did not shine. Although it offered a first-person view of the darkest time in modern history and offered an inspiring message, the book was not up to par when compared with other titles in the genre. For a book about another captured Western European civilian-turned-resistance fighter, I would instead recommend Resistance: A Frenchwoman's Journal of the War by Agnès Humbert; for a better-told story of the Dutch defiance of Nazi German anti-Semitic policies, check out Miep Gies' Anne Frank Remembered.