Trailer for The Hiding Place (1975) based on the life of Corrie ten Boom.
Sara Gliksman describes being hidden during the Holocaust by the Fink family in Poland.
In Polish with English subtitles from the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)
When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Corrie ten Boom was a devout Christian living with her father Casper and her sister Betsie above the family’s watch shop in Haarlem. In addition to being the country’s first licensed female watchmaker, Corrie was a social worker and the family was known for helping the needy.
The Ten Booms started giving temporary shelter to their Jewish neighbors and quickly became involved with resistance activities such as distributing forged ration cards. A hidden room was built in Corrie’s bedroom. Thirty inches deep, it was meant to serve as a temporary hiding place in case of a raid.
The Nazis arrested the Ten Boom family on February 28, 1944 after a tip from a Dutch informant. Six houseguests were able to avoid detection by using the hidden room. The Ten Boom family was first sent to Scheveningen prison where Casper died ten days after his arrest. Nollie, William and Peter, Ten Boom family members who had not been living in the house, were released while Corrie and Betsie were sent to Vught concentration camp.
Betsie died at Ravensbruck concentration camp on December 16, 1944. Corrie survived and was released 15 days later.
After the war, Corrie established a home for other camp survivors. She also began writing, publishing hrt first book in 1946. Corrie would eventually publish over 20 books, the most famous of which is The Hiding Place.
Corrie died on her 91st birthday in Orange, California. The Ten Boom family home in Haarlem is now a museum.
Thanks to heysarah for the suggestion.
Irena Sendler
February 10, 1910 - May 12, 2008
Rescued 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto
As a social worker, Irena Sendler was allowed by the Nazis to visit the Warsaw Ghetto and check signs of typhus. What the Nazis didn’t know was that in addition to being a social worker, Irena was the secret head of the children’s section of Zegota (Council to Aid Jews). Between 1942 and 1943, she smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the ghetto and into hiding. For comparison, Oskar Schindler saved roughly 800 Jewish workers.
In 1943, Irena was arrested by the Gestapo. She was tortured, but she didn’t give up the names of her Zegota contacts or the hidden children. In Poland, the penalty for helping a Jew was death, a harsher sentence than elsewhere in Nazi controlled Europe. Irena was sentenced to death by firing squad, but Zegota managed to bribe a guard who left her in the woods. She spent the remainder of the war in hiding.
Irena hid lists of the children’s real names and their hiding places in jars she buried, hoping that they could soon be reunited with their families. Sadly, the majority of the parents perished in the Holocaust and never saw their children again.
Irena Sendler was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1965. However, her story was little known until a group of high school students created a play called Life in a Jar based on her bravery during the war. A year before her death in 2008, Irena was nominated for the 2007 Noble Peace Prize.
Although she did not win, at least her bravery was recognized during her lifetime.
