Appendix D: Notes on Sources and Method

“it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order … that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed.”

— Luke 1:3-4, ASV

This appendix explains where the story told in this book comes from, how the sources were weighed, and which popular claims have been corrected. It is written for readers who want to check the story for themselves, and for anyone who will retell it.

Corrie’s Own Books

Corrie ten Boom told her story in many books, all of which remain in copyright. This biography has not reproduced them. It tells her life in its own words and quotes her only in brief phrases. Readers who want to hear her voice should read her books directly.

Her earliest account is Gevangene en toch … Herinneringen uit Scheveningen, Vught en Ravensbrück, published in Amsterdam in June 1945, a month after liberation. An English translation, A Prisoner and Yet, was published in London by the Christian Literature Crusade in 1947, with a foreword by Norman Grubb. It was written within months of her release, and it is the closest record we have to the events in her own words. It includes a facsimile of her discharge certificate from Ravensbrück.

Her later books include Amazing Love (1953), The Hiding Place (1971, written with John and Elizabeth Sherrill), Tramp for the Lord (1974), Corrie ten Boom’s Prison Letters (1975), and In My Father’s House (1976). The Hiding Place is the fullest and best-known account, and the basis of the 1975 film.

The Comparison Between 1945 and 1971

A central method of this book has been to compare the 1945 account with The Hiding Place, written twenty-six years later.

Already in 1945: the underground household, with Eusie singing too loudly and the evening classes; the hiding place and the drills with a stopwatch and cream puffs; the raid on 28 February 1944, the slaps, and the plaque reading “Jesus is Victor”; Casper’s words about giving his life for “God’s ancient people” and his motto “the best is yet to come”; Psalm 91 read on the police-station mattress; solitary confinement, the ants, and the kindly interrogating officer; the Vught embroidery image; the angels at the Ravensbrück processing building; the vitamin bottle; the sisters’ plans for a home; Betsie’s death; the week in the hospital barracks and the girl Oelie; the journey home; and the house in the woods.

First appearing later: the fleas that kept the guards out of the barracks; the man who came to the shop on the morning of the raid asking for money; the description of the release as a clerical error, and the claim that all women her age were gassed a week later; the message that the “watches” in her cupboard were safe; Betsie’s saying that there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still, where the 1945 book has a related saying in Corrie’s own mouth; the framing of the sisters’ plans as Betsie’s visions; and the encounter with the former guard in Munich. That encounter is not in Amazing Love (1953) either, which tells instead of preaching to former women guards in an internment camp.

These later details may be true memories that Corrie did not include in 1945, or they may have taken shape over years of retelling. This book has usually told them, while saying where they first appear.

Independent Records

The following sources, independent of Corrie’s books, have been used:

The Oorlogsgravenstichting (Dutch war-graves foundation): person records for Casper ten Boom and Christiaan (Kik) ten Boom, and its page for the memorial at the Corrie ten Boom House, including the text of the memorial plaque.

The Joods Monument (Jewish memorial register of the Netherlands): the record of Margaretha Jacqueline (Mary) van Itallie, re-arrested in 1944 and murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau on 1 May 1944.

Yad Vashem: the rescuer file on the ten Boom family, and the dates of recognition, 1967 for Corrie and 2007 for Casper and Betsie.

The Nationaal Monument Oranjehotel: the record of Corrie’s imprisonment at Scheveningen.

The Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland (Huygens Institute): a scholarly short biography.

The Corrie ten Boom House museum in Haarlem: its chronology, drawn from family papers.

The Holocaust Encyclopedia of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and regional Dutch histories of the house.

Hans Poley, Return to the Hiding Place (1993), the memoir of one of the young men hidden in the house, based on his wartime diaries.

Corrections to the Popular Story

Birthplace. Corrie was born in Amsterdam, not Haarlem.

Watchmaker’s qualification. The year is given variously as 1921, 1922, and 1924. This book follows the museum and the Dutch lexicon in giving 1924, and no certificate is known.

Numbers arrested. The sources give twenty-one, more than thirty, and thirty-five. This book says two to three dozen.

The six in the hiding place. Not all survived the war. Mary van Itallie was re-arrested within days and murdered at Auschwitz. Meijer Mossel (Eusie) survived. The Yad Vashem file’s statement that the Jews remained hidden for the rest of the war is not correct.

The informer. His name is given as Jan Vogel in the later books and as H. van Vogel by a Dutch local historian. The claim that he was executed is not supported by the list of Dutch postwar executions. His fate is unknown without the court records.

The “800 saved.” This is the museum’s estimate for the whole network of which the family was part, not a count of people hidden in the Beje.

The release. No document confirms a clerical error. The 1945 account suggests the sisters expected a fixed term. The Ravensbrück gas chamber began operating in late January 1945, about a month after Corrie’s release, not a week after.

Darmstadt. Popular accounts call the Darmstadt home a former concentration camp. The sources do not make clear what kind of camp it was.

The anti-rapture letter. A letter widely attributed to Corrie, said to date from 1974, has not been verified and should not be quoted as hers.

Questions Still Open

Several questions could be settled by further research. Dutch newspapers of 1945 to 1950, searchable on the national newspaper archive, and the postwar court records held at the Nationaal Archief might settle the informer’s identity and fate. The fate of all six people in the hiding place is still to be established. Other open questions include the exact nature of the Darmstadt camp, the date of Corrie’s return visit to Ravensbrück, and the real name of the architect “Mr. Smit.”

Scripture

All Scripture quotations are from the American Standard Version of 1901, in the public domain, checked against its published text.