A few weeks after the occupation of Holland began, the Germans demanded that all radios be handed in to the Dutch police, who were now firmly under the control of the German army. Corrie would have probably sent in both radios if her nephew Peter, her sister Nollie’s oldest son, hadn’t spoken up.
Corrie, Betsie, and Peter were sitting together in the parlor listening to Peter play a piece by Brahms on their ancient piano. When Peter was finished, Corrie sighed and patted the old radio. “I hate to have to take this down to Vroom en Dreesman’s store, but I received a flier in the mail today. All radios in Haarlem are to be handed over to the Germans.” Corrie sighed again and then went on, “It’s been such a joy to Father, and the radio is the only way we get any real news.”
Betsie nodded gloomily.
Corrie continued. “All you read in the newspapers is how wonderful the Germans are doing and how happy we should be to be a part of their great Aryan empire. I only buy the newspaper so Betsie can know what to buy with the ration cards. I never read the rest of it; I just use it to start the fire in the stove.” She half laughed to herself. “Without the speeches from Prime Minister Churchill and the news from Radio Orange, how will we ever know how things are really going?”
The question hung in the air. As far as Corrie was concerned, it was unanswerable, that is, until Peter spoke up.
“But don’t you see, Tante Corrie? We don’t have to do what they tell us. You can keep one of the radios. Why, there must be a hundred places you could hide it in this old house!”
Amazed, Corrie turned to look at Peter. She had never thought of not doing what the Germans told her to do. But it was true. The Beje was the perfect hiding place for the small radio. Of all the houses on the Barteljorisstraat, the Beje was the most irregular, since it was actually two houses joined together. When the houses were joined, there was a five-foot difference in the level of the floors in each house. This meant there were all sorts of funny-shaped nooks and crannies around the house. When the ten Boom children were small, they had often played a game where one of them tapped on one side of a wall while one of the others had to guess what was on the other side. It was nearly impossible to know with the twists and turns of the stairs, the strange angles of the walls, and the five-foot difference between the two houses.
Corrie’s imagination began to go to work. Corrie knew the Beje as well as anyone. Where was a good place to hide a radio? It would have to be easy to get to when they wanted to listen to the news.
“Let’s go and look at the stairs,” said Peter, interrupting her thoughts.
Betsie, Corrie, and Peter all walked slowly up and down the stairs. Corrie felt strange; she was a forty-eight-year-old woman in her own home looking for some way to trick the “enemy.” Somehow it didn’t seem quite real. Corrie began to giggle at the situation. Peter gave her a stern look, and she stopped.
“Here, this is the perfect hiding place,” Peter announced, stopping on the stairs just outside his grandfather’s room. “Look at this. It was made to hide something. I’ll pull away the planks, and you can put the radio in the hollow. I’ll put the planks back on top, and you can pull them away when you need to listen to the radio.” Peter smiled at his plan, and then he added, “It’s close to the piano, too.”
Corrie didn’t understand why being close to the piano was important, but Peter seemed to have thought of everything. “One of you can play the piano loudly while the others listen to the news. It will work perfectly,” he explained further.
Corrie looked at her musical, teenage nephew, and she didn’t feel like giggling anymore. He should be in school preparing for university, she told herself sadly, not dreaming up schemes to outwit an occupying army. Corrie felt a flash of hatred for the Germans. The intensity of it surprised her.
Later that day, Corrie carried her father’s wonderful old radio off to Vroom en Dreesman’s store. A Dutch policeman there copied the information from her identity card, which all Dutch people now had to carry at all times. When he’d finished copying the information, he consulted a list of addresses.
“Cornelia ten Boom, I see there are three of you living at this address. Are you sure you have only one radio between all of you?” the policeman asked.
Corrie looked him directly in the eye. “Of course. Why would we need more than one?”
The policeman grunted and waved her on. Corrie rushed home to tell Peter she had completed her first act against the invaders of her country. The Beje now had an illegal radio hidden beneath one of its stairs.
That night and every night after, a member of the family would pry open the planks in the stairway and tune the radio to the BBC in London. As they did so, someone else would beat out loud, cheerful tunes on the piano to cover up the sound of the radio. When the broadcast was over, they would all gather in the parlor for a report on how the war was going.
Unfortunately, the news was hardly ever good. By the end of June 1940, France was under German occupation, too. It seemed that Holland’s main usefulness to Germany lay in its closeness to England. Of all the countries in Northern Europe, Great Britain was the only one that hadn’t come under Hitler’s rule. German bombers used the airports in Holland to launch air raids on London. While most Dutch people felt sorry for the English, they also reasoned that as long as the Germans’ main use for Holland was a place from which to attack Great Britain, they were reasonably safe. The German army appeared to be passing through Holland rather than trying to change it.
But Corrie had listened to all Willem had told her, and she had a feeling something awful was about to happen in her country. At first she wasn’t sure what it would be, but bit by bit, the signs began to show themselves. Soon Corrie would be forced to make decisions that would forever change her life and the lives of those she loved.
Chapter 4
Certain Guests
Like blood through a bandage, changes seeped across the border into Holland. The German soldiers who came into the clockshop weren’t as polite as before. They asked questions and peered through open doorways. Slowly the comforts the Dutch people enjoyed were disappearing. They were small things, inconveniences at first. The curfew kept being moved up, until no one could be on the streets after 8:00 P.M. Each night all windows had to be blacked out with heavy drapes so that British bombers could see no lights from the air to help them work out their position.
Many of the things everyone had taken for granted disappeared from store shelves. Some things could now be purchased only on the black market, and other things not at all. Coffee became more expensive than gold, and new clothes and shoes were hard to find. Casper ten Boom could no longer afford to purchase the cigars he liked to smoke in the parlor in the evening, and Betsie cheerfully reboiled mutton bones five or six times to extract every bit of flavor from them. The store windows that were once filled with merchandise now displayed nicely wrapped empty boxes and large posters of Adolf Hitler assuring Dutch citizens that their sacrifice was going to help feed and clothe young German soldiers.
Some of the Nazis’ rules, though, just made the Dutch people laugh. For example, the Nazis banned all orange-colored tulips in Holland!
But these were only minor hindrances compared to what was happening to the 115,000 Jewish people who lived in Holland. Slowly and relentlessly they were being isolated from the rest of Dutch society. Store windows had signs that read, “Voor Joden Verboden” (For Jews Forbidden). Jews were also “verboden” in public libraries and restaurants. Dutch Jews who held government jobs were all fired, and then all the “unemployed and useless” men were rounded up and sent to labor camps in eastern Holland. Already eight thousand men had been forced to leave their families, not knowing where they were going or whether they would ever be coming back. Many old and familiar Jewish businesses also suddenly shut down. One day a merchant and his family would be serving customers; the next day the store would be shut and the merchant and his family would never be heard from again. Had they escaped from Holland, or had they been taken away to labor camps? No one knew for sure, and no one wanted to ask too many questions.
Every week it seemed the Germans made a new rule for the Jews. The Jews weren’t allowed to travel without permission papers. Jewish children had to attend Jewish schools. A Jew wasn’t allowed to own a bicycle, use public transport, or accept a ride in a private car. Whenever German soldiers saw Jews in the street, they mocked them. Corrie expected that from the Germans, but sadly many Dutch people were also becoming unkind to their Jewish neighbors. The Nazis formed a group in Holland called the National Socialist Bond (NSB for short), and many Dutch people were eager to join the group. Members got the best housing, the most ration coupons, and places at the head of the line when new products arrived in stores. Petrol for cars and trucks was in short supply, too, and only the German army and members of the NSB could buy it. For many Dutch people, the extra ration coupons, the housing, and the petrol seemed a fair exchange for supporting the Nazis and keeping an eye on Jewish activity. But much more scary to Corrie were those members of the NSB who truly believed what Hitler said and wanted Holland to be a part of his master race.
The war was taking some chilling turns. To everyone’s surprise, in June 1941, Hitler ordered the German army to attack the Russian army. The Russians, though, were supposed to be Germany’s ally in the war! When the ten Boom family heard the news on Radio Orange of the attack, they were shocked. What kind of madman was Adolf Hitler that he would attack his allies? Like many others in Holland, they began to worry that if he could do such a thing to the Russians, what might he do to the Dutch? A strange feeling crept across Holland. No one knew whom to trust anymore or who would be the next Jewish person to disappear.
Then the Germans made a new law. Whenever they were out in public, all Jews were to wear on the front of their clothes a patch bearing a large yellow Star of David with “Jew” stamped across it. When Casper ten Boom read of this new law in the newspaper, he put on his hat and coat.
“Where are you going?” Betsie asked him as he left the house.
“You will see soon enough,” he said.
He came back two hours later and laid a patch emblazoned with a yellow Star of David on the arm of his chair. “Betsie, could you sew this onto my coat, please,” he asked deliberately.
Corrie and Betsie looked down at the patch, and then at each other. Corrie recognized the look of horror in her sister’s eyes.
“No, father,” Corrie blurted out. “It won’t help for you to wear this.”
Casper ten Boom looked up, his bright blue eyes shining through his rimless glasses. “If it is good enough for God’s chosen people to suffer, then it is good enough for me to suffer with them.”
Both of his daughters sat down beside him and began the long process of convincing their stubborn father that there were other more useful ways to help the Jews and that for now, risking his arrest was not going to help anyone.
Eventually he was persuaded and laid the patch with its yellow star lovingly in the pages of the family Bible. Although he never wore the patch, his daughters knew he would have done so proudly. He would not have had a second thought about suffering or even dying to help a Jewish person.
Sunday, May 10, 1942, was the second anniversary of Germany’s bombing of Holland. Corrie, Betsie, and their father felt the need to get out of the house for a few hours, so they decided to visit Velsen, a nearby town where their nephew Peter played the organ at church.
All of the ten Booms were musical, but Peter had a special gift and had won the position of organist ahead of forty other applicants. Corrie was especially pleased about this because being an organist in Holland was an important job. She hoped it might protect Peter from being sent to Germany to work in a factory like many other young Dutch men.
