According to Christian History Institute:
February 28, 1944:
"Nazi soldiers arrest Corrie Ten Boom and her family in Harlaam for harboring Jews. Her father and a sister will die in concentration camps, but Corrie will be released because of a clerical error and become an international speaker for Christianity, author of The Hiding Place, and subject of a movie by the same name."
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/today
Corrie Ten Boom grew up in the Netherlands in a tall, narrow house with a large family, including some of her aunts. Even after most of the family was gone and it was only Corrie, her sister Betsie, and her father at home, there were always others who needed a place and stayed with them.
She became the first woman to be licensed as a watchmaker in the Netherlands.
She loved a man once, deeply, and believed that he loved her as well, but he married someone else. Corrie remained single, serving her family, working in the watch shop with her father, working with youth and the mentally challenged, serving her God in all that she did.
When World War II came, Corrie and her family risked their freedom to help the Jews survive. They were eventually betrayed and arrested. Her father died in prison; her sister Betsie in a concentration camp. Only Corrie survived.
After she returned home, Corrie founded a home for those who were returning from the camps and needed a place to live and heal. She later included, in a separate house, the Dutch who had collaborated with the Germans and now had no jobs, no homes, no friends. She recognized that both groups needed help and healing.
She later traveled around the world, speaking of God's forgiveness, hope, and love, and the salvation found in Christ alone.
She wrote many other books as well, including In My Father's House; Tramp for the Lord; God is My Hiding Place; and Father Ten Boom.
In 1967, Corrie ten Boom was honored by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among the Nations.” Her father, Casper, and sister, Betsie were likewise honoured in 2007.
Corrie Ten Boom died on April 15, 1983, her 91st birthday.
Some quotes from her books:
“Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.”
“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”
“There is no pit so deep, that God's love is not deeper still.”
“There is no panic in Heaven! God has no problems, only plans.”
After her young man became engaged to someone else:
“...suddenly I was afraid of what Father would say. Afraid he would say, "There'll be someone else soon," and that forever afterward this untruth would lie between us. For in some deep part of me I knew already that there would not--soon or ever--be anyone else.
The sweet cigar-smell came into the room with Father. And of course he did not say the false, idle words.
"Corrie," he began instead, "do you know what hurts so very much? It's love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain.
"There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill the love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.
"God loves Karel--even more than you do--and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us his perfect way."
I did not know, as I listened to Father's footsteps winding back down the stairs, that he had given me more than the key to this hard moment. I did not know that he had put into my hands the secret that would open far darker rooms than this--places where there was not, on a human level, anything to love at all.”
