Their home was always an “open house” for anyone in need. The ten Boom family were devoted Christians who dedicated their lives in service to their fellow men. Specifically, that vision is to care for and protect the Jewish people and to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, which was a 100-year weekly tradition in the ten Boom household. In 2008, he was honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.The Corrie ten Boom Fellowship and its sister organization, The Corrie ten Boom Foundation of Holland, are also charged with carrying forth the vision of the ten Boom Family.The Ten Boom Museum in Haarlem, operated in their former house, honors all the family.Casper ten Boom was buried at the National Cemetery of Honours in Loenen. Corrie was finally released from Ravensbruck several weeks after Betsie's death.
Willem's son Christiaan (commonly known as Kik), 24, was sent to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp for his work in the underground and died there during the war. Although he was released, he died of tuberculosis shortly after the war. Willem contracted spinal tuberculosis while he was imprisoned for his resistance work.
His daughter Betsie died at Ravensbrück in December 1944. When asked if he knew he could die for helping Jews, he replied, "I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family." On 9 March, Casper died at the Hague Municipal Hospital, at the age of 84, after nine days in Scheveningen prison. He replied, "If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door to anyone who knocks for help". When he was interrogated in prison, the Gestapo told him that they would release him because of his age so that he could "die in his own bed". The Gestapo arrested other supporters, who visited the house during the day, taking a total of about 30 people to Scheveningen prison. On 28 February 1944, the Gestapo raided his house and arrested him his daughters his son Willem and his grandson Peter, who were visiting. During the occupation, he sheltered many Jews there to save them from the Nazis. His son Willem, a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, also worked in a nondenominational nursing home. He told her, "In this household, God's people are always welcome." When the Nazis began requiring all Jews to wear the Star of David, he voluntarily wore one as well. She had heard that the family had helped other Jews and asked if she could stay with them, and Casper agreed. As Occupation authorities had visited her, she was afraid to return home. She said she was a Jew, her husband had been arrested several months before and her son had gone into hiding. In May 1942, a woman came to the house and asked for help. The Dutch Reformed Church "protested Nazi persecution of Jews as an injustice to fellow human beings and an affront to divine authority." The family strongly believed that people were equal before God.ĭuring the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, he and his daughters became active in sheltering Jewish people who were trying to escape the Nazis at their home. Corrie ran special church services for disabled children for 20 years. According to The Hiding Place, the family, in 1918, took in the first of many foster children whom they would shelter over the years.
The ten Booms were devout and generous Christians. Nollie married Flip van Woerden and had six children. Willem married Tine van Veen and had four children. The ten Boom family belonged to the Protestant Dutch Reformed Church. While Willem and Nollie married and moved away, he lived with his two unmarried daughters, Betsie and Corrie, in their home and watchmaking workshop. Casper's wife died in 1921 from a stroke. Another child, Hendrick Jan (12 September 1888 - 6 March 1889), died in infancy. He and Cor had five children, four of whom survived to adulthood: Elisabeth "Betsie" (1885-1944), Willem (21 November 1886 - 13 December 1946), Arnolda Johanna "Nollie" (1890 - 22 October 1953), and Cornelia Arnolda Johanna "Corrie" (1892-1983). Like his father, he lived and worked in the same building, with the shop on the ground floor and living quarters on the two floors above. In Sunday school, he met Cornelia Johanna Arnolda Luitingh (commonly known as "Cor"), whom he married in 1884. While living in Amsterdam, he started a work among the poor people, Tot Heil des Volks (For the Salvation of the People). He had grown up in a family that belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church and had strong faith. When ten Boom was 18, he started a jewelry store in Amsterdam. Casper was born in Haarlem as the son of Willem ten Boom, who had a watchshop.