November 14, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, all in all, it is estimated that around 800 Jews were saved by Corrie ten Boom and her family. Hear Corrie tell her story!
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories, and you are
about to hear the story of how one woman shined
one of the clearest lights on one of the darkest
moments in world history. All in all, it's estimated that
around eight hundred Jews were saved by Corey Temboom, her
sister Betsy, and the rest of her family's efforts. After
(00:32):
Holland's surrendered to the Nazis. They hid Jews in a
secret room in their home or baya, in Hollm, Netherlands,
near Amsterdam. We'd like to thank Vision Video for contributing
the footage for this story. So, without any further ado,
here's Cory Tenboom.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
A shadow fell across us in nineteen forty, but it
rested lightly. Nobody dreamed that this tiny cloud would grow
until that blocked out the sky. And nobody dreamed that
in the darkness, each of us would be called.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
To play a role.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Even the funny old baya with its urned matching floor
levels and ancient angles, life was.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Very changed when the war arrived.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I will never forget that through these streets and I
saw tanks and it was a real performance, which big
huge army going through the streets to make impression on us,
and I can still remember these boots marching over the streets.
(02:01):
It was strange when the German uniforms were seen and
we had to obey the people of the occupation.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
To the beginning was not so terrible.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We had only five days war and then we had
to surrender, and it seemed that things were a little
bit the same as before. Betsy tried to keep our
life as normal as was possible. She didn't agree with
(02:50):
all the things that the enemy told us to do,
and she tried even to make the meals as normal
and good as before.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
We really learned to know the people around us.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
There were friends where all they thought you can depend
on men, but they changed. They could get some more
food when they helped the enemy. But the example of
my father was a great help. Although he was at
last a week old men, his spiritual strength helped all
(03:31):
of us. When the Germans came in Holland, the young
men especially were in great danger. They needed workers in
ammunition factories. They came and took the boys just from
the street. These ratsias were terrible. Almost every family was
(03:58):
really ingreat danger and neat.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I think of my nephews Kick and Peter.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Sometimes when they had to go through the street, then
we gave them girls' dresses. Sometimes we have laughed when
they had that, when they went in girls dresses in
the street. But in reality it was very sad. During
(04:27):
the first year of German rule there were only minor
attacks on jewels in the Halt. It was as though
they were trying testing the temper of the country. On
our daily walk, Father and I saw the symptoms spread.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Jews will not be served no juice.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It began slowly built a Nazi propaganda machine spewed out poison.
The yellow star served to mark the prey. In the
early morning hours, many royal Dutchmen were forced.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
From their beds.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
They left their homes like shadows. They would never return.
As soon as we saw the danger.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
There for all the Jewish people, we warned many of them.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I remember that father and I went to doctor Himster,
one of our friends. Just imagine that mister Vanemstra will
be brought to a concentration camp, his wife to another
concentration camp, his children will be killed, And that moment
(05:53):
I took a decision.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
That was the beginning.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
There were many underground workers in Haunt. Then they had
many secrets. The good thing was that there were two
entrances in the shop and in the alley, and we
always looked very carefully who came. Some of the neighbors
(06:24):
did not know, and it was better that they didn't
know it. We did not talk about the jews outside.
We were a small family of three people, my father
with two of his spins, the daughters. We just played
the game as if that was the whole family chisman.
(06:48):
The work became so important the bea needed a hiding
place in case the Gestapo came for an inspection. The
secrets room was made in my bedroom. There was a
famous architect who made these hiding places, and that was
(07:08):
his plant in the underground work very important. I will
never forget that he came upstairs and through the whole
house to see where it was possible, and because this
room were the highest of the house, he chose this,
my tiny bedroom. The wall was made of brick, and
(07:30):
that was the secret of the hiding place. When they
started to knock at it, it was solid, so they
didn't find it.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
They had to creep.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So into this opening of the hiding place, and then
when they were in it they could close the backside
of the closet, so that you couldn't see there was
(08:04):
an opening. A non privileged Jew will be unable to
show his face in the Netherlands. At the same time,
as a mix commissioner, I will publish a degree that
the possessions, and each day more and more Jews were
heard together on city street corners, families young and old.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
There were no exceptions.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Publicly, the Nazis succeeded in their attempt to camouflage the
destiny of the departies. They spoke of labor service in Germany.
Our hearts were torn seeing them hold away like sheep,
come dignified, almost hopeful. The human imagination cope not accept
(09:04):
the whispered rumors as to what away to them.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And you're listening to Corey Tamboom, and what a story
she is telling. I am old, but I know about prison,
she started, I know what it is like to be
behind a door that only opens from the outside. And
those last words were chilling. The human imagination could not
accept the whispered rumors as to what awaited When we
(09:30):
come back more of Corey Temboom's story. Here are now
American stories, and we continue with the story of Corey
(10:11):
ten boom Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
For two eventful years, the Lord allowed us to help
hundreds of people escape the Nazi death camps until February
twenty eight, nineteen hundred and forty four. Were the Jews
what jukes?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Lord to help me? There on the street.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I remember the dream that the Lord gave to me
at the beginning of the war, as I watched a
kind of odd old farm wagon, the old, fashioned and
out of place in the middle of a city, came
lumbering a roster.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Square, pulled by four enormous black horses.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
To my surprise, I saw that I myself was sitting
in the wagon, and Father too, and Betsy. There are
many others, some strangers, some friends I recognized Pickwick and
those Villain and young Peter altogether. We were surely being
drawn across the square behind those horses.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
We couldn't get off the wagon. That was the terrible thing.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
It was taking us away, far away, but we.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Didn't want to go. I did not know then, but.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
That dream meant later I understood in this house in
eighteen hundred and forty four, and something a minister said
(12:03):
to my grandfather, pray for the peace of Jerusalem that
is written in the Bible. My grandfather had never thought
about it, but he saw that it was a commandment
in the Bible, and he invited his friends, and they
came in this house every week and at.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
A prayer meeting for Jews.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
One hundred years later, in this very same house, grandfather's son,
four of his grandchildren and a great grandson were arrested
because they.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Had saved Jewish people. That was a.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Divine but not to understand answer on prayer for Jerushem.
I remember that when father was worn by his friends
and they said.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Don't have always Jewish people in that house. It will
end up in prison for you.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Then Father said, I'm too old for prison life, but
when that will happen, it will be an honor to
me to give my life for God's ancient people.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
And that's what really happened.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
After ten days already Father died in prison. For the
first week, they put me in a cell with four
or five others. I was very ill with pleurisy. The
prison doctor said I would have tuberccarosis, so I was
(13:41):
sent to soldiery confinement. They did not want me to
infect the others, perhaps for the first time in my life,
I was really alone, and I knew my life was
completely in the head of the enemy. They could kill me,
(14:03):
or torture me, just forget me altogether.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
There was no one to know.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
At night, the sounds of distant bone penetrated the thick walls,
and the muffled cries of people being tortured by the Gestapo.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
That was a little bit of help.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I tried singing, but the guards poundered on the door
for silence.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
They threatened to take me to the dark cell.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
In the dark cell, you had to stand in water.
Time became a very thick.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Thing to have to wade through.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
There was a possibility each moment of the day and
night that it would come for me.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Whenever I heard.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Footsteps outside mysel, I would ask myself, do they come
to torture me?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
To kill me?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Once I stood with my back against the wall of
my cell, with my hands spread out as if I
would push it away, and I was dead scared, And
then I said, Lord, I'm not strong enough to stand
(15:35):
all this. My faith is not strong enough. Then I
saw an end I had seen for days, roaming off
the floor. I just mopped the floor with a wet
rag the moment and felt the water on the stones.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
He ran to a little hole in the wall.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
He did not stop to look at the wet rag
or his weak feet, even straight to his hiding place. Cory,
don't look at your faith. It is weak, like the
tiny feet of that end. Don't think of the possibilities
of those cruel people. I am your hiding place, and
(16:23):
you can come to me like that.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
End disappeared into.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
The hole in the wall, and for the first time
there came a real.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Peace in my heart. I was fifty three years old then.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I had always known about Jesus, and now, in sold reconfinement,
I had started to really know that His light is
stronger than the deepest darkness. I have an idea that later,
when we are in heaven, we will look back and
understand many things that are now not to understand by us.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I can tell you about thousand.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Answer prayers, but I also can tell you about many
unanswered prayers. There was a prayer that I said every
day when I was in prison in Holland, Oh God,
that they never bring us to a concentration chem We
had heard such terrible rumors about what happened there, but
(17:33):
God had other plans.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
This is Betsy, my sister.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
She was in another part of that same prison, but
I could never see her. Months later we were transferred
to a bigger prison in Holland.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
And then after that.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
We were packed like cattle in boxcars and taken teap In,
took Germany. The Nazis were empty in jails everywhere. Men
(18:15):
prisoners were sent one way, women prisoners another.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
And you're listening to Corey Tamboom, and it doesn't get
more real than this, the confrontation with evil, and my goodness,
face to face is Corey and so many of the
people of Western Europe, and so many Allied Americans and
Canadians and Australians taking the fight to the Nazi menace. Lord,
(18:43):
I'm not strong enough to stand all of this. My
faith is not strong enough. And my goodness, the Nazi menace, well,
it put faith to the test throughout Western Europe. I'm
not sure Western Europe has recovered actually, And then that prayer,
Oh God, may they never take us to a concentration camp.
(19:05):
But God had other plans, he said, when we come
back more of the remarkable story of Corey ten Boom.
Here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(19:39):
American stories. Let's return to Corey ten Boom.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
My sister and I, along with thousands of others, were
marched into Raffensbrook.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
It was called a work camp.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
When we first came into the camp, they took everything away.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It was a great miracle that I had my Bible.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I hid it under my dress on my back, and
I prayed, Lord, will you send your angels to surround me?
But then I thought, angels are spirits, and you can
look through spirits, and I don't want these people to
see me. So I prayed in my great fear, God,
let your angels not be transparent today.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
They must cover me. And God did it.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
The woman in front of me was searched, and then
my sister threw us directly behind me.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
But no one even noticed I was there.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
The barracks they put us in were built for two
hundred women. They packed seven hundred of us inside. The
bunks were built up all the way to the ceilind
we each had sleeping space a few inches wide. If
they had all been working, we would have had eight
toilets for the entire barracks. It was so dangerous A
(21:06):
Raven'sbrook to use the word of God. If the guards
called you, you were killed in a very cruel way.
But they never knew that I had a Bible meeting
twice every day in Barracks twenty eight. The room was filthy,
crawling with fleece and lies. That's why the guards never
came in past the door. So you see that the
(21:29):
Lord used the angels and lies to leave us our Bible.
I don't mean to say it was pleasant. There were
moments of great despair. I remember one night I was
outside the barracks and there were beautiful stars, and I said, Lord,
(21:55):
you guide all these stars. You have not forgotten one
of them, that you have for gotten Betsy and me.
And then Betsy said, no, he does not forget us.
I know that from the Bible. The Lord Jesus has said,
I am with you always until the end of the world.
And Cory, he is here with us. And we must
(22:18):
believe that tis not feeling but believing. And I slowly
learned not to trust in myself or my faith or
my feelings are trusting in but trusting in Him.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Feelings come and feelings go. They are deceitful in all
that hell around us.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The promises from the Bible kept us sane, and Ravensbrook
was a work. It was the enemy's plan to work
us of death. Before the war would end, ninety six
(23:04):
thousand women would die here, including dear Betsy, who became
an old woman before my eyes and slowly starved. The
smoke from the crematorium was like a black haze over
the camp. Every day, seven hundred women died or were killed.
It was the only way to solve the problem. There
(23:25):
were far too many of us. So I looked death
in the eyes, not once, but often, and I found
that the Lord was still my hiding place. Betsy was
now number six six seven two nine. I was sixty
(23:50):
six seven three.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It was as if we had ceased to be human.
Twenty eight was built to house four hundred women. There
were now fourteen hundreds of us. Our small Bible became
(24:13):
the center of an ever widening circle of help and hope.
Like waves clustered around the blazing fire, we held out
our hearts to.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Its warmth and light. I had believed the.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Bible always, but reading it now had nothing to do
with belief. It was simply a description of the way
things were of hell and heaven of how men act
and how God acts. Betsy seemed mercifully oblivious to pain
(24:54):
and despair. Watching her, I over wondered if God had
put a hedge about her, as he had.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
About Job so long ago.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
The cold was affecting Betsy's legs.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
They were like wood.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
She weighed no more than a child.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
She could no longer stamp.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Her feet as the rest of us did to keep
her blood flowing. More and more, the distinction between prayer
and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsy.
Betsy was gone. There was no cold now, no hunger,
(25:49):
nothing between Betsy and the face of kisses. And then
I saw already a little bit God's side. When the
Lord takes us very close to himself, we see the
things more or less from God's point of view. In
(26:09):
some way we are protected, but not that is not
in the Bible that the Lord will tell that.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
You have no cross to bear.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Just contrary, the Bible says, take up pure cross and
follow the Lord Jesus. And to follow the Lord Jesus.
That means to share in his suffering.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
But he gives grace to do it, and he even
gives joy.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
There is almost a joyful sight in suffering for the Lord,
especially in suffering for the Lord, because we know that
Jesus has suffered so much for us. At a Cross
and Boom Cornelia. Three mornings after Betsy's death, I was
(27:06):
summoned to the Administration barracks. Years later, it was learned
my release came through a clerical error, what some might
call a mistake. Not long after I was set free,
(27:26):
women my age were put to death.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
It was in the meeting in Germany.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I saw suddenly in the in the midst of the crowd,
woman who wouldn't look into my eyes. And certainly I
saw that woman, that is the nurse who has been
cruel to Betsy when he was dying.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
And it came hatred in my heart.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
But I knew when I do not forgive those who
have sinned against me, then the heavenly Father will not
forgive me.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
So I said, Lord, I cannot forgive her.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
But Lord, I claim Romans five five. The love of
God is shed, brought into our heart through the Holy
Spirit is given to us. And I said, thank you Jesus,
that you have brought into my heart God's love through
the Holy Spirit. And thank you Father that you love
in me is stronger than I hate it. And the
(28:31):
same moment I could love that nurse, and I was
used afterwards to bring her to a decision for Jesus Christ.
I just imagine I had hated her. But when the
Lord cleanses you with his blood, he does such a
good job that he.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Can fill your heart with his love.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yes, I am Corey Temboom, and I have told anyone
who would listen, No bit is so deep that he
is not deeper still with Jesus, even in our darkest moments.
(29:26):
The best three means and the very best he had
to be. I promised my sister I would tell it,
and I tell you.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
And a special thanks to Greg Hangler a great job
on the production. As always, we'd like to thank Vision
Video for contributing the footage for the story. On her
ninety first birthday, April fifteenth, nineteen eighty three, Corey ten
Boom passed away and was buried in Santa Ana, California.
On her death, it was noted that in Jewish tradition,
(30:04):
it is only the very blessed people who are allowed
the special privilege of dying on their birthday. The story
of Krey tenboum Here on our American stories.
And we continue with our American stories, and you are
about to hear the story of how one woman shined
one of the clearest lights on one of the darkest
moments in world history. All in all, it's estimated that
around eight hundred Jews were saved by Corey Temboom, her
sister Betsy, and the rest of her family's efforts. After
(00:32):
Holland's surrendered to the Nazis. They hid Jews in a
secret room in their home or baya, in Hollm, Netherlands,
near Amsterdam. We'd like to thank Vision Video for contributing
the footage for this story. So, without any further ado,
here's Cory Tenboom.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
A shadow fell across us in nineteen forty, but it
rested lightly. Nobody dreamed that this tiny cloud would grow
until that blocked out the sky. And nobody dreamed that
in the darkness, each of us would be called.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
To play a role.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Even the funny old baya with its urned matching floor
levels and ancient angles, life was.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Very changed when the war arrived.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I will never forget that through these streets and I
saw tanks and it was a real performance, which big
huge army going through the streets to make impression on us,
and I can still remember these boots marching over the streets.
(02:01):
It was strange when the German uniforms were seen and
we had to obey the people of the occupation.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
To the beginning was not so terrible.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We had only five days war and then we had
to surrender, and it seemed that things were a little
bit the same as before. Betsy tried to keep our
life as normal as was possible. She didn't agree with
(02:50):
all the things that the enemy told us to do,
and she tried even to make the meals as normal
and good as before.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
We really learned to know the people around us.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
There were friends where all they thought you can depend
on men, but they changed. They could get some more
food when they helped the enemy. But the example of
my father was a great help. Although he was at
last a week old men, his spiritual strength helped all
(03:31):
of us. When the Germans came in Holland, the young
men especially were in great danger. They needed workers in
ammunition factories. They came and took the boys just from
the street. These ratsias were terrible. Almost every family was
(03:58):
really ingreat danger and neat.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I think of my nephews Kick and Peter.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Sometimes when they had to go through the street, then
we gave them girls' dresses. Sometimes we have laughed when
they had that, when they went in girls dresses in
the street. But in reality it was very sad. During
(04:27):
the first year of German rule there were only minor
attacks on jewels in the Halt. It was as though
they were trying testing the temper of the country. On
our daily walk, Father and I saw the symptoms spread.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Jews will not be served no juice.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It began slowly built a Nazi propaganda machine spewed out poison.
The yellow star served to mark the prey. In the
early morning hours, many royal Dutchmen were forced.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
From their beds.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
They left their homes like shadows. They would never return.
As soon as we saw the danger.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
There for all the Jewish people, we warned many of them.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I remember that father and I went to doctor Himster,
one of our friends. Just imagine that mister Vanemstra will
be brought to a concentration camp, his wife to another
concentration camp, his children will be killed, And that moment
(05:53):
I took a decision.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
That was the beginning.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
There were many underground workers in Haunt. Then they had
many secrets. The good thing was that there were two
entrances in the shop and in the alley, and we
always looked very carefully who came. Some of the neighbors
(06:24):
did not know, and it was better that they didn't
know it. We did not talk about the jews outside.
We were a small family of three people, my father
with two of his spins, the daughters. We just played
the game as if that was the whole family chisman.
(06:48):
The work became so important the bea needed a hiding
place in case the Gestapo came for an inspection. The
secrets room was made in my bedroom. There was a
famous architect who made these hiding places, and that was
(07:08):
his plant in the underground work very important. I will
never forget that he came upstairs and through the whole
house to see where it was possible, and because this
room were the highest of the house, he chose this,
my tiny bedroom. The wall was made of brick, and
(07:30):
that was the secret of the hiding place. When they
started to knock at it, it was solid, so they
didn't find it.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
They had to creep.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So into this opening of the hiding place, and then
when they were in it they could close the backside
of the closet, so that you couldn't see there was
(08:04):
an opening. A non privileged Jew will be unable to
show his face in the Netherlands. At the same time,
as a mix commissioner, I will publish a degree that
the possessions, and each day more and more Jews were
heard together on city street corners, families young and old.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
There were no exceptions.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Publicly, the Nazis succeeded in their attempt to camouflage the
destiny of the departies. They spoke of labor service in Germany.
Our hearts were torn seeing them hold away like sheep,
come dignified, almost hopeful. The human imagination cope not accept
(09:04):
the whispered rumors as to what away to them.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And you're listening to Corey Tamboom, and what a story
she is telling. I am old, but I know about prison,
she started, I know what it is like to be
behind a door that only opens from the outside. And
those last words were chilling. The human imagination could not
accept the whispered rumors as to what awaited When we
(09:30):
come back more of Corey Temboom's story. Here are now
American stories, and we continue with the story of Corey
(10:11):
ten boom Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
For two eventful years, the Lord allowed us to help
hundreds of people escape the Nazi death camps until February
twenty eight, nineteen hundred and forty four. Were the Jews
what jukes?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Lord to help me? There on the street.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I remember the dream that the Lord gave to me
at the beginning of the war, as I watched a
kind of odd old farm wagon, the old, fashioned and
out of place in the middle of a city, came
lumbering a roster.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Square, pulled by four enormous black horses.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
To my surprise, I saw that I myself was sitting
in the wagon, and Father too, and Betsy. There are
many others, some strangers, some friends I recognized Pickwick and
those Villain and young Peter altogether. We were surely being
drawn across the square behind those horses.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
We couldn't get off the wagon. That was the terrible thing.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
It was taking us away, far away, but we.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Didn't want to go. I did not know then, but.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
That dream meant later I understood in this house in
eighteen hundred and forty four, and something a minister said
(12:03):
to my grandfather, pray for the peace of Jerusalem that
is written in the Bible. My grandfather had never thought
about it, but he saw that it was a commandment
in the Bible, and he invited his friends, and they
came in this house every week and at.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
A prayer meeting for Jews.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
One hundred years later, in this very same house, grandfather's son,
four of his grandchildren and a great grandson were arrested
because they.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Had saved Jewish people. That was a.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Divine but not to understand answer on prayer for Jerushem.
I remember that when father was worn by his friends
and they said.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Don't have always Jewish people in that house. It will
end up in prison for you.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Then Father said, I'm too old for prison life, but
when that will happen, it will be an honor to
me to give my life for God's ancient people.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
And that's what really happened.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
After ten days already Father died in prison. For the
first week, they put me in a cell with four
or five others. I was very ill with pleurisy. The
prison doctor said I would have tuberccarosis, so I was
(13:41):
sent to soldiery confinement. They did not want me to
infect the others, perhaps for the first time in my life,
I was really alone, and I knew my life was
completely in the head of the enemy. They could kill me,
(14:03):
or torture me, just forget me altogether.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
There was no one to know.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
At night, the sounds of distant bone penetrated the thick walls,
and the muffled cries of people being tortured by the Gestapo.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
That was a little bit of help.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I tried singing, but the guards poundered on the door
for silence.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
They threatened to take me to the dark cell.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
In the dark cell, you had to stand in water.
Time became a very thick.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Thing to have to wade through.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
There was a possibility each moment of the day and
night that it would come for me.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Whenever I heard.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Footsteps outside mysel, I would ask myself, do they come
to torture me?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
To kill me?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Once I stood with my back against the wall of
my cell, with my hands spread out as if I
would push it away, and I was dead scared, And
then I said, Lord, I'm not strong enough to stand
(15:35):
all this. My faith is not strong enough. Then I
saw an end I had seen for days, roaming off
the floor. I just mopped the floor with a wet
rag the moment and felt the water on the stones.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
He ran to a little hole in the wall.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
He did not stop to look at the wet rag
or his weak feet, even straight to his hiding place. Cory,
don't look at your faith. It is weak, like the
tiny feet of that end. Don't think of the possibilities
of those cruel people. I am your hiding place, and
(16:23):
you can come to me like that.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
End disappeared into.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
The hole in the wall, and for the first time
there came a real.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Peace in my heart. I was fifty three years old then.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I had always known about Jesus, and now, in sold reconfinement,
I had started to really know that His light is
stronger than the deepest darkness. I have an idea that later,
when we are in heaven, we will look back and
understand many things that are now not to understand by us.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I can tell you about thousand.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Answer prayers, but I also can tell you about many
unanswered prayers. There was a prayer that I said every
day when I was in prison in Holland, Oh God,
that they never bring us to a concentration chem We
had heard such terrible rumors about what happened there, but
(17:33):
God had other plans.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
This is Betsy, my sister.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
She was in another part of that same prison, but
I could never see her. Months later we were transferred
to a bigger prison in Holland.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
And then after that.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
We were packed like cattle in boxcars and taken teap In,
took Germany. The Nazis were empty in jails everywhere. Men
(18:15):
prisoners were sent one way, women prisoners another.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
And you're listening to Corey Tamboom, and it doesn't get
more real than this, the confrontation with evil, and my goodness,
face to face is Corey and so many of the
people of Western Europe, and so many Allied Americans and
Canadians and Australians taking the fight to the Nazi menace. Lord,
(18:43):
I'm not strong enough to stand all of this. My
faith is not strong enough. And my goodness, the Nazi menace, well,
it put faith to the test throughout Western Europe. I'm
not sure Western Europe has recovered actually, And then that prayer,
Oh God, may they never take us to a concentration camp.
(19:05):
But God had other plans, he said, when we come
back more of the remarkable story of Corey ten Boom.
Here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(19:39):
American stories. Let's return to Corey ten Boom.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
My sister and I, along with thousands of others, were
marched into Raffensbrook.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
It was called a work camp.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
When we first came into the camp, they took everything away.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It was a great miracle that I had my Bible.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I hid it under my dress on my back, and
I prayed, Lord, will you send your angels to surround me?
But then I thought, angels are spirits, and you can
look through spirits, and I don't want these people to
see me. So I prayed in my great fear, God,
let your angels not be transparent today.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
They must cover me. And God did it.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
The woman in front of me was searched, and then
my sister threw us directly behind me.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
But no one even noticed I was there.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
The barracks they put us in were built for two
hundred women. They packed seven hundred of us inside. The
bunks were built up all the way to the ceilind
we each had sleeping space a few inches wide. If
they had all been working, we would have had eight
toilets for the entire barracks. It was so dangerous A
(21:06):
Raven'sbrook to use the word of God. If the guards
called you, you were killed in a very cruel way.
But they never knew that I had a Bible meeting
twice every day in Barracks twenty eight. The room was filthy,
crawling with fleece and lies. That's why the guards never
came in past the door. So you see that the
(21:29):
Lord used the angels and lies to leave us our Bible.
I don't mean to say it was pleasant. There were
moments of great despair. I remember one night I was
outside the barracks and there were beautiful stars, and I said, Lord,
(21:55):
you guide all these stars. You have not forgotten one
of them, that you have for gotten Betsy and me.
And then Betsy said, no, he does not forget us.
I know that from the Bible. The Lord Jesus has said,
I am with you always until the end of the world.
And Cory, he is here with us. And we must
(22:18):
believe that tis not feeling but believing. And I slowly
learned not to trust in myself or my faith or
my feelings are trusting in but trusting in Him.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Feelings come and feelings go. They are deceitful in all
that hell around us.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The promises from the Bible kept us sane, and Ravensbrook
was a work. It was the enemy's plan to work
us of death. Before the war would end, ninety six
(23:04):
thousand women would die here, including dear Betsy, who became
an old woman before my eyes and slowly starved. The
smoke from the crematorium was like a black haze over
the camp. Every day, seven hundred women died or were killed.
It was the only way to solve the problem. There
(23:25):
were far too many of us. So I looked death
in the eyes, not once, but often, and I found
that the Lord was still my hiding place. Betsy was
now number six six seven two nine. I was sixty
(23:50):
six seven three.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
It was as if we had ceased to be human.
Twenty eight was built to house four hundred women. There
were now fourteen hundreds of us. Our small Bible became
(24:13):
the center of an ever widening circle of help and hope.
Like waves clustered around the blazing fire, we held out
our hearts to.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Its warmth and light. I had believed the.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Bible always, but reading it now had nothing to do
with belief. It was simply a description of the way
things were of hell and heaven of how men act
and how God acts. Betsy seemed mercifully oblivious to pain
(24:54):
and despair. Watching her, I over wondered if God had
put a hedge about her, as he had.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
About Job so long ago.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
The cold was affecting Betsy's legs.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
They were like wood.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
She weighed no more than a child.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
She could no longer stamp.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Her feet as the rest of us did to keep
her blood flowing. More and more, the distinction between prayer
and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsy.
Betsy was gone. There was no cold now, no hunger,
(25:49):
nothing between Betsy and the face of kisses. And then
I saw already a little bit God's side. When the
Lord takes us very close to himself, we see the
things more or less from God's point of view. In
(26:09):
some way we are protected, but not that is not
in the Bible that the Lord will tell that.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
You have no cross to bear.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Just contrary, the Bible says, take up pure cross and
follow the Lord Jesus. And to follow the Lord Jesus.
That means to share in his suffering.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
But he gives grace to do it, and he even
gives joy.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
There is almost a joyful sight in suffering for the Lord,
especially in suffering for the Lord, because we know that
Jesus has suffered so much for us. At a Cross
and Boom Cornelia. Three mornings after Betsy's death, I was
(27:06):
summoned to the Administration barracks. Years later, it was learned
my release came through a clerical error, what some might
call a mistake. Not long after I was set free,
(27:26):
women my age were put to death.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
It was in the meeting in Germany.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I saw suddenly in the in the midst of the crowd,
woman who wouldn't look into my eyes. And certainly I
saw that woman, that is the nurse who has been
cruel to Betsy when he was dying.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
And it came hatred in my heart.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
But I knew when I do not forgive those who
have sinned against me, then the heavenly Father will not
forgive me.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
So I said, Lord, I cannot forgive her.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
But Lord, I claim Romans five five. The love of
God is shed, brought into our heart through the Holy
Spirit is given to us. And I said, thank you Jesus,
that you have brought into my heart God's love through
the Holy Spirit. And thank you Father that you love
in me is stronger than I hate it. And the
(28:31):
same moment I could love that nurse, and I was
used afterwards to bring her to a decision for Jesus Christ.
I just imagine I had hated her. But when the
Lord cleanses you with his blood, he does such a
good job that he.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Can fill your heart with his love.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yes, I am Corey Temboom, and I have told anyone
who would listen, No bit is so deep that he
is not deeper still with Jesus, even in our darkest moments.
(29:26):
The best three means and the very best he had
to be. I promised my sister I would tell it,
and I tell you.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
And a special thanks to Greg Hangler a great job
on the production. As always, we'd like to thank Vision
Video for contributing the footage for the story. On her
ninety first birthday, April fifteenth, nineteen eighty three, Corey ten
Boom passed away and was buried in Santa Ana, California.
On her death, it was noted that in Jewish tradition,
(30:04):
it is only the very blessed people who are allowed
the special privilege of dying on their birthday. The story
of Krey tenboum Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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