AP

Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place. A Graphic Novel adapted by Mario DeMatteo and illustrated by Ismael Castro. Minneapolis: Chosen Books (Baker), 2024. 239 pages. $24.99, Reformers.

I have heard the moving story of Corrie ten Boom retold in a hundred sermons, but I had never read her book for myself. Having just finished this abridged and illustrated version I wish I had read her story long ago.

The daughter of a prosperous Dutch watchmaker in Amsterdam, Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) took on her father’s craft. Her family were deeply pious evangelical Christians: they prayed and read the Word daily, served in their church, and enjoyed a vibrant personal faith in Christ.

When the Germans occupied Holland in May 1940, Dutch Jews were soon targeted. Their businesses were boycotted, their homes and belongings were stolen, and from 1942 they were rounded up and sent to extermination camps in central Europe.

As Christians, the ten Booms felt a strong love and God-given responsibility to help their persecuted neighbours. Bravely, they associated with the Dutch Resistance and their home became a staging post for Jewish refugees. When the borders closed, they took in permanent residents.

Hiding Jews was strictly prohibited so the family had a secret room constructed on the third floor of their townhouse: not a place to live but a place for their guests to lie low for an hour when the Nazis came knocking. Large numbers of refugees came and went so it was only a matter of time before the family was denounced and arrested.

That day arrived in February 1944. Corrie and her sister Betsie were imprisoned as criminals in the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp. They endured hunger, disease, violence and humiliation.

Here Betsie becomes the true heroine of the story. Though she was weaker than Corrie, and developed a fatal lung disease, she urged her sister to continued faithfulness in the most appalling of trials.

From their possessions the sisters managed to keep a secret Bible, which they read aloud to the other prisoners each evening. At great risk they evangelised and discipled their fellow prisoners and led them in daily worship.

It would be difficult to take for granted our freedom to read and pray and worship after reading this book.

Betsie died in prison. After the war Corrie became a well-known Christian speaker, telling of how the Lord grew her faith through her ordeal, and how she had to learn to forgive those who had brutalised her family. It was after one of those meetings that one of her former guards approached her. He held out his hand asking her for forgiveness.

‘Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man: was I going to ask for more? ‘Lord Jesus, forgive me and help me to forgive him. Jesus, I cannot forgive him, give your forgiveness.’ 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. 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.’ 

This book is beautifully illustrated and presented – the artwork nods to Hergé’s Tintin albums – and the story is a fast-paced page-turner. It is a must read for older children and teens, a perfect gift from parents and grandparents.

The Hiding Place challenges my Christian life and faith. We see a brave and faithful Christian family that had been long-prepared to face their dangers and ordeals through years of faithful daily prayer and Bible reading. So we must all read and pray and gird ourselves well in advance for whatever trials the Lord may call us to face: for when the trial comes it is often too late.

I want also to have a measure of Betsie’s joyful patience: her absolute certainty in the Lord’s goodness, “that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”, that though we face famine, nakedness, danger, or sword, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I highly recommend this moving and beautiful illustrated biography.

–  Campbell Markham