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In The Hiding Place, does Corrie have an eyewitness account when she talks about the Holocaust?

Corrie Ten Boom is renowned for her bestselling book, The Hiding Place, in which she relates her own personal story of the struggle to help Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution in Holland. It also describes her own (and her family's) detention and transfer to the concentration camps. It is a true story in which Corrie emphasizes her sister's compassion and ability to forgive their tormentors. Corrie survives, but her sister and father do not.

Having been identified as sympathizers, the Ten Booms are not spared the wrath of the Nazis, and their modest home (and watch shop) is raided. Corrie and her older sister Betsie are sent to Scheveningen. When Corrie is arrested, she watches Jews be ridiculed, kicked, and stripped of their possessions and their dignity. She spends time in Scheveningen in solitary confinement, where she learns her efforts have not been in vain and receives a message that reads, "All the watches in your closet are safe" (chapter 10). This means the Jews hidden in the shop escaped undetected.


After a transfer to Vught, Corrie witnesses merciless beatings and hears the firing squad on numerous occasions. There is much talk that the Germans will be defeated imminently; instead, Corrie and Betsie have to face their biggest fear when they eventually find themselves in Ravensbruk, Germany, a notorious labor camp for women (chapter 13). In Ravensbruk, "the most savage place yet," Corrie muses that "there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering." The women are known only by their prison numbers, are subjected to humiliating weekly inspections, and have incredibly hard lives.


Towards the end of her ordeal, and after Betsie's death, Corrie talks about a prison train that had been bombed, leaving the survivors "horribly mutilated and in terrible pain." Corrie is shocked at the seeming indifference of other prisoners and guards alike, and she calls this indifference "the fatal disease of the concentration camp" (chapter 15).


Accordingly, Corrie has a first-hand understanding of the circumstances and effects of the Holocaust in terms of her efforts to support the Jewish cause, and her own enormous personal loss.

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