Corrie Ten Boom

As her memoir describes in detail, Corrie ten Boom was born into a large and religious Dutch family at the turn of the 20th century. After sheltering Jewish fugitives throughout World War II and surviving internment in the Vught and Ravensbruck concentration camps, ten Boom returned to Holland and opened rehabilitation centers both for Holocaust survivors and former Dutch Nazi collaborators. To raise money for these projects, ten Boom began speaking about her experiences to church audiences. She soon became well-known and traveled the world as an evangelical motivational speaker, speaking alongside famous preachers like Billy Graham. She emerged not just as a religious thinker but a social critic, protesting modern issues like the Vietnam War. Corrie wrote many books about her life and her relationship to Christian teachings, among which The Hiding Place is the most famous. Ten Boom was honored as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, an honor given by Israel to non-Jews who put themselves at risk to save Jewish lives during the war. In the last years of her life, ten Boom retired to California, where she died on her 91st birthday.