The Ten Boom Family

Corrie ten Boom during the Holocaust Period

It was between 1943 to 1944 when Nazis conquered Holland. Corrie ten Boom and her family allowed the Jews and members of the Dutch underground to hide in their house for safety. On February 28, 1944, Casper's family was betrayed. The Nazi secret police set a trap and waited throughout the day, seizing everyone who came to the house. By evening, over 20 people had been taken into custody. Casper, Corrie, and Betsie were all arrested. Corrie's brother Willem, sister Nollie, and nephew Peter were at the house that day, and were also taken to prison.

Corrie Ten Boom and the other prisoner's condition in the concentration camp were unbearable. They were beaten and starved and maltreated by Hitler's men. Despite all these, Corrie Ten Boom was determined to spread Christianity. None of her family survived the war but she went on to spread Jesus love and be a role model to all.

Corrie Ten Boom died on her 91st birthday, April 15, 1983. It is interesting that Corrie's passing occurred on her birthday. In the Jewish tradition, it is only very blessed people who are allowed the special privilege of dying on their birthday. She is worth remembered this International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2012. More of her story when you visit http://tenboom.org .

Oscar Schindler

Oskar Schindler was born on April 28, 1908 at Zwittau/Moravia (today in the Czeck republic).

His middle-class Catholic family belonged to the German-speaking community in the Sudetenland. The young Schindler, who attended German grammar school and studied engineering, was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father and take charge of the family farm-machinery plant. Some of Schindler’s schoolmates and childhood neighbors were Jews, but with none of them did he develop an intimate or lasting friendship. Like most of the German-speaking youths of the Sudetenland, he subscribed to Konrad Henlein’s Sudeten German Party, which strongly supported the Nazi Germany and actively strove for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and their annexation to Germany . When the Sudetenland was incorporated into Nazi Germany in 1938, Schindler became a formal member of the Nazi party.

Shortly after the outbreak of war in September 1939, thirty-one-year-old Schindler showed up in occupied Krakow. The ancient city, home to some 60,000 Jews and seat of the German occupation administration, the Generalgouvernement, proved highly attractive to German entrepreneurs, hoping capitalize on the misfortunes of the subjugated country and make a fortune. Naturally cunning and none too scrupulous, Schindler appeared at first to thrive in these surroundings. In October 1939, he took over a run-down enamelware factory that had previously belonged to a Jew. He cleverly maneuvered his steps- acting upon the shrewd commercial advice of a Polish-Jewish accountant, Isaak Stern - and began to build himself a fortune. The small concern in Zablocie outside Krakow, which started producing kitchenware for the German army, began to grow by leaps and bounds. After only three months it already had a task-force of some 250 Polish workers, among them seven Jews. By the end of 1942, it had expanded into a mammoth enamel and ammunitions production plant, occupying some 45,000 square meters and employing almost 800 men and women. Of these, 370 were Jews from the Krakow ghetto, which the Germans had established after they entered the city.

A hedonist and gambler by nature, Schindler soon adopted a profligate lifestyle, carousing into the small hours of the night, hobnobbing with high ranking SS-officers, and philandering with beautiful Polish women. Schindler seemed to be no different from other Germans who had come to Poland as part of the occupation administration and their associates. The only thing that set him apart from other war-profiteers, was his humane treatment of his workers, especially the Jews. Read more...

In 1962 a tree was planted in Schindler's honor in the Avenue of the Righteous at Yad Vashem. Oskar and Emilie Schindler were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1993.

Just like Oskar and Emilie Schindler, Corrie ten Boom and her family were able to save countless Jews from the Nazi horror during the war in the hiding place. Israel honored Corrie ten Boom by naming her Righteous Among the Nations for her efforts. Ten Boom...

The Hiding Place

The Hiding Place is a 1971 book on the life of Corrie ten Boom, written by ten Boom together with John and Elizabeth Sherrill. The title refers to the physical hiding place, the ten Boom hiding place, where the ten Boom family secreted Jews hiding from the Nazis.