Introducing the ten Boom Family
Cornelia (Corrie) ten Boom was a Dutch woman
of great faith and compassion who was born 130 years ago on April 15, 1892. After
living in California for a few years, she died there in 1983 on her 91st
birthday.
Corrie was born in Haarlem, the capital of the
province of North Holland. Her father, Casper, was a watchmaker who raised his family
in a large storefront house. That was Corrie’s home from the time of her birth
until it was raided by Nazis and she was arrested and incarcerated on February
28, 1944.
(In May 2007, on our 50th wedding
anniversary trip to Europe, when the train we were on arrived in Amsterdam, June
and I hurriedly put our bags in a locker and took a local train to Haarlem. We
had a delightful visit at the ten Boom’s house/shop and the large St. Bavo Church
they attended.)
Father Casper, who was 84, and Betsie,
Corrie’s older sister (b. 1885) were also incarcerated on that fateful February
day. Casper died a few days later (on March 9), and then on December 16 that
year, Betsie died in the Ravensbrück, Germany, concentration camp for women.
Twelve days later, Corrie was released from
that same camp through a clerical error, which Corrie believed was miraculous.
Introducing “The Hiding Place”
The “crime” of the ten
Boom family was their helping Jews and resisters escape
the Nazis during the Holocaust of World War II. They constructed a literal
hiding place in their oddly built house, and it is said that by that and other
means they saved the lives of some 800 Jews.
A Christian writer
named Elizabeth Sherrill met Corrie in Germany in 1968. Then she and her husband
John went to Haarlem to learn more about the ten Boom family and Corrie.
Subsequently, the
Sherrills co-authored with Corrie The Hiding Place, a book that was
published in 1971 and became a bestseller. In 1975 the movie with the same name
was issued, and Corrie became known by Christians, and others, around the
world.
I wrote in my
diary/journal that we felt depressed after seeing the movie in 1977, but after
watching it again last month, I was deeply moved and inspired by Corrie’s deep
faith and compassion for suffering people.
Introducing the
“Righteous Gentiles”
The Yad Vashem
Remembrance Authority in Israel honored Corrie by naming her Righteous Among the Nations in December
1967. That term is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews
who for altruistic reasons risked their lives to save Jews from extermination
by the Nazis.
While her efforts were not as extensive as those
of Oskar Schindler (1908~94) or Irena Sendler (1910~2008), the two most famous
“rescuers” listed on the Jewish Virtual
Library website, Corrie certainly deserved that honor bestowed upon her.
Through the centuries there has, sadly, been serious
mistreatment of Jewish people by Christians. But there have also been numerous
Christians who out of compassion have risked their own lives to help persecuted
Jews escape death.
Casper ten Boom and his daughters Betsie and
Corrie were Christians and members of St. Bevo Dutch Reformed Church, just a
few minutes’ walk from their home. But despite their devout evangelical
faith—or perhaps it is more accurate to say, because of that faith—they, indeed,
were “righteous Gentiles.”
_____
** Here are two links for learning more about Corrie ten Boom and the
hiding place in her Haarlem home:
Link to a virtual tour of the ten Boom home in Haarlem.
YouTube link
to A Faith Undefeated (2013), a 58-minute documentary film of Corrie;
much of it is narrated by Pamela Rosewell Moore, who was Corrie’s “servant” from
1976 until her (Corrie’s) death in 1983.
Thanks for today's blog. I've had a copy of the book on my shelf for over 30 years but haven't gotten around to reading it. I've read quite a lot of literature on WWII and the Holocaust--Wiesel, Bettelheim, and others. I'm currently reading reading a book titled After Auschwitz: History, Theology, and Contemporary Judaism by Richard L. Rubenstein. I'd started the first edition (1966) while in seminary, but it burned in a fire in my apartment before I could finish it. It was often viewed as a Jewish contribution to the Death of God theology of the 1960s. My memory of the first edition is that he asked, how can we believe in God after Auschwitz? Now that I'm reading an edition published almost 30 years after the first, it's clear that he argues that we cannot hold the traditional, orthodox beliefs about God after Auschwitz, a view with which I concur.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes have mixed feelings when we highlight the lives of Christians who aided Jews at great risk during the Holocaust. The reality is that far more Christians participated in the 1930s and 40s and for centuries before that in pogroms, expulsions, ethnic cleansings of Jews, and, most horrific, the Holocaust. And then there are the millions who just looked the other way, avoiding the pangs of their own conscience. Rubenstein does a detailed analysis of the economic, political, cultural, and religious sources of antisemitism. I haven't finished it yet, but it seems to me a very important book.
Certainly Corrie Ten Boom and her family should be applauded and praised for what they did and the price they paid for it. Yad Vashem does that for many Christians and others in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations and is not to be missed in any visit to Israel.
Thanks so much for these comments, Anton. I had been wanting to see if Bonhoeffer had been included among the "righteous Gentiles," so for some reason I decided to Google my question after reading your comments, and of all things the first article that came up was one titled "Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer a 'Righteous Gentile'? That article was written by none other than Richard L. Rubenstein (1924~2021)! (The article was published in the June 2000 issue of "International Journal on World Peace."
DeleteRubenstein began, "On May 26, 1996 the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum held a ceremony honoring Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans von Dohnanyi as 'righteous Gentiles' . . . ." There were objections to that honoring of Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law, so that is the matter Rubenstein wrote about in this essay. His conclusion: for Bonhoeffer "…to will the defeat of his own nation and to participate in bringing it about" was an extraordinarily courageous act and that he "…fully merits the accolade righteous Gentile."
As to Rubenstein's argument about whether "we" can hold traditional beliefs about God after Auschwitz, I think the way this is referred to in Wikipedia is important to realize: "Rubenstein argued that the experience of the Holocaust shattered the traditional Judaic concept of God, especially as the God of the covenant with Abraham, in which the God of Israel is the God of history. Rubenstein argued that Jews could no longer advocate the notion of an omnipotent God at work in history or espouse the election of Israel as the chosen people. In the wake of the Holocaust, he believed that Jews have lost hope and there is no ultimate meaning to life." That may well be true for Jews and not necessarily true for non-Jews.
Concerning your next to last paragraph, I was reminded that the very first research paper I wrote in seminary--in the fall of 1959--was on the Old Testament concept of the remnant. From those times to the present, perhaps true religious faith is seen primarily in a small segment of religious believers (a remnant) rather than in the masses.
I do not know any more about Corrie ten Boom than what others have already presented, but it just so happens I have read "After Auschwitz" twice, once years ago in college, and again a few years ago. What stuck with me was his approach to the complexities of Jewish law; he did not want to change a thing, but neither did he want to enforce it as such. His attitude was that each generation would need to figure out for themselves which parts were still meaningful.
DeleteConcerning "the death of God," he wrote (page 263) "Unlike Dr. Altizer, I cannot rejoice in the death of God. If I am a death of God theologian, it is with a cry of agony." Later on the same page, he explains, "Religion is the way in which we share our predicament; it is never the way in which we overcome our condition."
He ends the book discussing Augustine's dictum "Love and then do as you please." He adds, "I would add something inspired by Jean Paul Sartre's existentialist philosophy: 'Love, do as you please, but know that whatever you do will have consequences for which you and you alone are responsible.'"
Our visit to Israel in 1916 revealed a nation full of hope and unsurpassed for what I call their "Holocaust Consciousness". I understood the assertion "Never Again!" because its verification was all around us. One thing about Yad Vashem I remember above all else - and there is so much that is impressive - was the attention to the lives and accomplishments, the contributions and the strengths of those who suffered or died in the Holocaust or Shoah - rather than dwelling on what was done to them in genocidal war. One must think about the lives so well on display in that superb museum. I remember the same gut reactions we had when The Hiding Place appeared in film - the injustice and the temptation to embrace hatred toward evil people. But thanks, Leroy, for offering a reminder that a faith-filled and motivated, admirable character, however mistreated, responds righteously, mercifully, hopefully, and with greater trust in God, rather than to allow spiritual defeat in degrading spirits and circumstances.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, Jerry. I much appreciate you last, powerful sentence.
DeleteI assume you meant 2016 rather than 1916. (I sometimes make that same sort of mistake.) The first and only time I visited Israel was in 2017, but unfortunately, I was not able to visit Yad Vashem during my too-short visit there.
Aye, my soul is not that old.
ReplyDeleteSteve Harmon of North Carolina, a Facebook friend who self identifies as a "Baptist ecumenical theologian," posted the following comments on Facebook this morning after I linked to my blog article there:
ReplyDelete"I was able to visit the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where Corrie was held and her sister died, when in Germany with my family in 2018. One aspect of the ten Booms' story that I find theologically intriguing is that while American evangelicals later came to embrace that story through the Sherrills' book and film based on it, Caspar ten Boom believed that the Jews are the people of God and despite his devout Christian faith made no effort to convert his Jewish guests to it. This doesn't cohere well with the supersessionism of American evangelicals that leads them to target Jews for evangelism."
[Here is my response to Steve as posted on Facebook.]
DeleteThanks, Steve, for posting significant comments here, and I am honored that you would do so as I see you have 4,500 FB friends!
The theological reflection you made is an important one, I think, but I wonder how you learned what Casper ten Boom believed.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial website about Corrie has the following statement about her beliefs regarding the persecuted Jews, and I assume her father's were similar.
"The ten Boom family were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, which protested Nazi persecution of Jews as an injustice to fellow human beings and an affront to divine authority. In her autobiography, ten Boom repeatedly cited religious motivations for hiding Jews, particularly her family's strong belief in a basic tenet of their religion: the equality of all human beings before God." (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/corrie-ten-boom)
For 38 years, I was a missionary supported by Southern Baptists. And I basically hold to a "supersessionist" view of Christianity and Judaism. But I fully agree with the words (from USHMM) cited above, and I didn't believe in the past and do not believe now that anyone, anywhere, should be "targeted" for evangelism.
Steve then responded to my reply to him:
Delete"I've read that somewhere before. It's mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Corrie ten Boom, though I don't think that's where I came across it; that assertion is footnoted, but I don't have access to the source for cross-checking it. As for supersessionism, while it's well-established in the Christian tradition beginning with the patristic 'Adversus Iudaeos' literature from the mid-second century onward that followed the parting of ways between church and synagogue (e.g., Tertullian), it's been largely disavowed by the 'theology after Auschwitz' developed by post-WWII European political theology, exemplified by Jürgen Moltmann."
And here is my response to Steve's last comments:
DeleteThanks, Steve, for your further comments.
I am aware of the development, and misuse, of the idea of supersessionism and of the theological arguments against it, arguments which I have taken seriously. But I still stand by what I wrote about this in my book "The Limits of Liberalism" (2010; rev. ed., 2020):
"As I have already stated above, certainly there is absolutely no place for any “teaching of contempt” by any religion at any time. It is also certain that respect for Jewish people—and all people of every religion—must be taught and practiced. But my point is simply this: there is no necessary or inevitable link between belief in supersessionism and contempt for the Jews. While those who have held such contempt may have also held to the doctrine of supersessionism, the former was not caused by the latter. Rather the cause of mistreatment of Jews was the result of prejudice, ignorance, fear, and a general lack of love of neighbor as self, such as taught by Jesus. People characterized by such attitudes can, and do, use the doctrine of supersessionism in unhealthy or even destructive ways. But that certainly does not mean that the doctrine itself is flawed or erroneous" (pp. 307-8).
Thinking Friend (and FB friend) Nancy Garner, who is a history professor at Wright State University of Ohio, also posted comments on Facebook, which I am now pasting here:
ReplyDelete"Thanks. I remember reading "The Hiding Place" as a teenager and how it made me aware of my responsibilities to suffering people. On a trip to the Netherlands in 2014, I was able to tour the house. Very moving. We need to know that many German Christians (and unfortunately some US Christians) supported the Nazis, but stories like Ten Booms’ should awaken us to those who risked death or did actually die in order to comply with true Christian values. This story should be a huge caution against the Christian nationalism that has raised its ugly head throughout US history."
Thanks, Nancy, for your comments. I am always happy to hear from you, as you are one of my outstanding former students.
DeleteI am currently reading Charles Marsh's book "Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer," and I have been amazed (again) to see how the vast majority of the German Christians in the 1930s and early '40s supported Hitler. Thanks, too, for linking that to the problematic issue of (White) Christian nationalism in the U.S.
Here is the first part of an email I received from Nancy in response to what I wrote to her:
Delete"I am alarmed and fearful on so many levels -- on the national level, it seems that what is left of any progressivism in the Democratic party is being stamped out -- I just do not understand why the leadership stands idly by, wishing that Trumpism would go away.
"On the church level, too many American Christians (particularly those of the right-wing variety) are content to preserve white privilege and to somehow (???) find justification for that in the Bible. I see this particularly in the very conservative branch of the Southern Baptists -- they are not content with what they gained in the late '70s, but unfortunately, concerns about racism and women have crept into 'their' seminaries and the conservatives won't have it -- again, apparently Jesus would be against women pastors and social justice and he would uphold white privilege & racism. They have also embraced Constantinian Christianity and are arguing that Jesus would be all for the U.S. empire and colonialism (or at least, he would not object). I have been silently observing a few younger 'boys' who are making names for themselves on YouTube by making these arguments. I tried to engage them early on and ask what they thought they were doing, but that was a waste of time -- they told me I just didn't understand how I had been fooled by academia and the lefties."
A few minutes ago, Thinking Friend Eric Dollard sent the following comments by email:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for your remarks about Corrie ten Boom. We also saw the movie about her in 1977; it was powerful but very heart-wrenching, although fortunately ten Boom survived the war.
She is an example of those described by Victor Frankl in his book, "Man's Search for Meaning." The ones most likely to survive were those who lived for something beyond themselves. This was true of ten Boom and of Frankl himself."
Eric, thanks for your comments and for linking Corrie to Viktor Frankl. As you probably remember, I posted a blog article about him at the end of March 2020:
Deletehttps://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-search-for-meaning-in-terrible-times.html
Thanks, Leroy, for this inspiring post on Corrie ten Boom. You and some of your readers might be interested in reading my 2011 movie review on Irena Sendler here: https://dimlamp.blogspot.com/2011/01/movie-review.html
ReplyDelete