The Hiding Place

by

Corrie Ten Boom

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Corrie ten Boom Character Analysis

The novel’s protagonist and narrator, a middle-aged Dutch woman who turns her home into a hiding place for Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Raised in an extremely religious family, Corrie remains a devout Christian throughout her life and devotes herself to fulfilling what she sees as God’s will. Prior to the war, Corrie sees Christianity as a mandate to accept personal misfortune as part of the divine plan and to orient her life around helping others. Accordingly, she doesn’t complain when the love of her life, Karel, spurns her to marry a wealthier woman; rather, she resigns herself to remaining single and devotes herself to running her family household and running religious programs for mentally disabled people. When Germany occupies Holland and begins to round up and deport Jews, Corrie immediately begins to shelter neighbors and family friends; her faith inspires her to help those in need, even though doing so entails serious risk. Although her enterprise is dangerous and stressful, it also brings out Corrie’s latent leadership qualities – she’s brave, able to find solutions to tricky problems, and good at maintaining morale and camaraderie among her family and the people they hide. Eventually, the Gestapo uncovers Corrie’s activities with the help of a Dutch spy, Jan Vogel; she and most of her family are arrested, but they refuse to give any information about the eight Jews hiding in their house and the fugitives are eventually able to escape. Corrie spends several months in solitary confinement before being sent to the concentration camps of Vught and Ravensbruck with her older sister Betsie. During this time Corrie is inspired and energized by Betsie’s exemplary fulfillment of Christian principles and ability to forgive their captors, and even the abusive concentration camp guards. At the same time, she derives a sense of purpose in caring for her older and physically weaker sister. While Betsie dies in Ravensbruck, Corrie is released without explanation soon after and returns to Haarlem shortly before the end of the war. After the war ends, Corrie founds and operates institutional homes both for recovering Holocaust survivors and socially-shunned Dutch collaborators. Eventually, she becomes well-known as a public speaker, and addresses diverse audiences about the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation after the Holocaust. In doing so, she feels she’s imparting the teachings she learned from Betsie in the concentration camps.

Corrie ten Boom Quotes in The Hiding Place

The The Hiding Place quotes below are all either spoken by Corrie ten Boom or refer to Corrie ten Boom. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Faith and Action Theme Icon
).
The One Hundredth Birthday Party Quotes

Young and old, poor and rich, scholarly gentlemen and illiterate servant girls—only to Father did it seem that they were all alike. That was Father’s secret: not that he overlooked the differences in people; that he didn’t know they were there.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Father / Casper ten Boom
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Full Table Quotes

After the briefest possible discussion of business, Father would draw a small Bible form his traveling case; the wholesaler […] would snatch a book or scroll out of a drawer, clap a prayer cap onto his head; and the two of them would be off, arguing, comparing, interpreting, contradiction—reveling in each other’s company.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Father / Casper ten Boom
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:
Karel Quotes

God loves Karel—even more than you do—and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.

Related Characters: Father / Casper ten Boom (speaker), Corrie ten Boom, Karel
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
The Watch Shop Quotes

Willem shook his head. “It’s very deliberate,” he said. “It’s because Christoffels is old. The old have no value to the State. They’re also harder to train in new ways of thinking. Germany is systematically teaching disrespect for old age.”

Related Characters: Willem ten Boom (speaker), Corrie ten Boom, Christoffels, Otto
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Invasion Quotes

And then, incredibly, Betsie began to pray for the Germans up there in the planes, caught in the fist of the giant evil loose in Germany [...] “Oh, Lord,” I whispered, “listen to Betsie, not me, because I cannot pray for these men at all.”

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Betsie ten Boom
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

But if God has shown us bad times ahead, it’s enough for me that He knows about them. That’s why He sometimes shows us things, you know—to tell us that this too is in His hands.

Related Characters: Betsie ten Boom (speaker), Corrie ten Boom
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:

Some joined the NSB simply for the benefits: more food, more clothing coupons, the best jobs and housing. But others became NSBers out of conviction. Nazism was a disease to which the Dutch, too, were susceptible, and those with an anti-Semitic bias fell sick of it first.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:

We knew, of course, that there was an underground in Holland […] but [the rumors] featured things we believed were wrong in the sight of God. Stealing, lying, murder. Was this what God wanted in times like these? How should a Christian act when evil was in power?

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:
The Secret Room Quotes

The man bent forward, his hand in spite of himself reaching for the tiny fist curled around the blanket. For a moment I saw compassion and fear struggle in his face. Then he straightened. “No. Definitely not. We could lose our lives for that Jewish child.”

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Betsie ten Boom
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Eusie Quotes

Love. How did one show it? How could God Himself show truth and love at the same time in a world like this?

By dying. The answer stood out for me sharper and chillier than it ever had before that night: the shape of a Cross etched on the history of the world.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Nollie ten Boom/von Woerden
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:
Storm Clouds Gather Quotes

Each night we lighted one more candle as Eusie read the story of the Maccabees. Then we would sing, haunting, melancholy, desert music. We were all very Jewish those evenings.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Meyer Mossel / Eusebius “Eusie” Smit
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Scheveningen Quotes

Could it be part of the pattern first revealed in the Gospels? Hadn’t Jesus—and here my reading became intent indeed—hadn’t Jesus been defeated as utterly and unarguably as our little group and our small plans had been?

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
The Lieutenant Quotes

In the Bible I learned that God values us not for our strength or our brains but simply because He has made us. Who knows, in His eyes a half-wit may be worth more than a watchmaker. Or—a lieutenant.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Lieutenant Rahms
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Vught Quotes

“Betsie, don’t you feel anything about Jan Vogel? Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Oh yes, Corrie! Terribly! I’ve felt for him ever since I knew—and pray for him whenever his name comes into my mind. How dreadfully he must be suffering!”

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Betsie ten Boom (speaker), Jan Vogel
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:
Ravensbruck Quotes

Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 206
Explanation and Analysis:

I had believed the 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. I had read a thousand times the story of Jesus’ arrest—how soldiers had slapped Him, laughed at Him, flogged Him. Now such happenings had faces and voices.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:

“‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’” she quoted. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”

Related Characters: Betsie ten Boom (speaker), Corrie ten Boom
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:

And then we would hear the life-giving words passed back along the aisles in French, Polish, Russian, Czech, back into Dutch. They were little previews of heaven, these evenings beneath the light bulb. I would think of Haarlem, each substantial church set behind its wrought-iron fence and its barrier of doctrine. And I would know again that in darkness God’s truth shines most clear.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 213
Explanation and Analysis:
The Blue Sweater Quotes

The knitters of Barracks 28 became the praying heart of the vast diseased body that was Ravensbruck, interceding for all the camp—guards, under Betsie’s prodding, as well as prisoners. We prayed beyond the concrete walls for the healing of Germany, of Europe, of the world—as Mama had once done from the prison of a crippled body.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Betsie ten Boom
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
The Three Visions Quotes

When mention of the NSBers no longer brought a volley of self-righteous wrath, I knew the person’s healing was not far away. And the day he said, “These people you spoke of—I wonder if they’d care for some homegrown carrots,” then I knew the miracle had taken place.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 247
Explanation and Analysis:

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
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Corrie ten Boom Quotes in The Hiding Place

The The Hiding Place quotes below are all either spoken by Corrie ten Boom or refer to Corrie ten Boom. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Faith and Action Theme Icon
).
The One Hundredth Birthday Party Quotes

Young and old, poor and rich, scholarly gentlemen and illiterate servant girls—only to Father did it seem that they were all alike. That was Father’s secret: not that he overlooked the differences in people; that he didn’t know they were there.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Father / Casper ten Boom
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:
Full Table Quotes

After the briefest possible discussion of business, Father would draw a small Bible form his traveling case; the wholesaler […] would snatch a book or scroll out of a drawer, clap a prayer cap onto his head; and the two of them would be off, arguing, comparing, interpreting, contradiction—reveling in each other’s company.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Father / Casper ten Boom
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:
Karel Quotes

God loves Karel—even more than you do—and if you ask Him, He will give you His love for this man, a love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.

Related Characters: Father / Casper ten Boom (speaker), Corrie ten Boom, Karel
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
The Watch Shop Quotes

Willem shook his head. “It’s very deliberate,” he said. “It’s because Christoffels is old. The old have no value to the State. They’re also harder to train in new ways of thinking. Germany is systematically teaching disrespect for old age.”

Related Characters: Willem ten Boom (speaker), Corrie ten Boom, Christoffels, Otto
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:
Invasion Quotes

And then, incredibly, Betsie began to pray for the Germans up there in the planes, caught in the fist of the giant evil loose in Germany [...] “Oh, Lord,” I whispered, “listen to Betsie, not me, because I cannot pray for these men at all.”

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Betsie ten Boom
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

But if God has shown us bad times ahead, it’s enough for me that He knows about them. That’s why He sometimes shows us things, you know—to tell us that this too is in His hands.

Related Characters: Betsie ten Boom (speaker), Corrie ten Boom
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:

Some joined the NSB simply for the benefits: more food, more clothing coupons, the best jobs and housing. But others became NSBers out of conviction. Nazism was a disease to which the Dutch, too, were susceptible, and those with an anti-Semitic bias fell sick of it first.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:

We knew, of course, that there was an underground in Holland […] but [the rumors] featured things we believed were wrong in the sight of God. Stealing, lying, murder. Was this what God wanted in times like these? How should a Christian act when evil was in power?

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:
The Secret Room Quotes

The man bent forward, his hand in spite of himself reaching for the tiny fist curled around the blanket. For a moment I saw compassion and fear struggle in his face. Then he straightened. “No. Definitely not. We could lose our lives for that Jewish child.”

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Betsie ten Boom
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Eusie Quotes

Love. How did one show it? How could God Himself show truth and love at the same time in a world like this?

By dying. The answer stood out for me sharper and chillier than it ever had before that night: the shape of a Cross etched on the history of the world.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Nollie ten Boom/von Woerden
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:
Storm Clouds Gather Quotes

Each night we lighted one more candle as Eusie read the story of the Maccabees. Then we would sing, haunting, melancholy, desert music. We were all very Jewish those evenings.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Meyer Mossel / Eusebius “Eusie” Smit
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Scheveningen Quotes

Could it be part of the pattern first revealed in the Gospels? Hadn’t Jesus—and here my reading became intent indeed—hadn’t Jesus been defeated as utterly and unarguably as our little group and our small plans had been?

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
The Lieutenant Quotes

In the Bible I learned that God values us not for our strength or our brains but simply because He has made us. Who knows, in His eyes a half-wit may be worth more than a watchmaker. Or—a lieutenant.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Lieutenant Rahms
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Vught Quotes

“Betsie, don’t you feel anything about Jan Vogel? Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Oh yes, Corrie! Terribly! I’ve felt for him ever since I knew—and pray for him whenever his name comes into my mind. How dreadfully he must be suffering!”

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Betsie ten Boom (speaker), Jan Vogel
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:
Ravensbruck Quotes

Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 206
Explanation and Analysis:

I had believed the 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. I had read a thousand times the story of Jesus’ arrest—how soldiers had slapped Him, laughed at Him, flogged Him. Now such happenings had faces and voices.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:

“‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’” she quoted. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”

Related Characters: Betsie ten Boom (speaker), Corrie ten Boom
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:

And then we would hear the life-giving words passed back along the aisles in French, Polish, Russian, Czech, back into Dutch. They were little previews of heaven, these evenings beneath the light bulb. I would think of Haarlem, each substantial church set behind its wrought-iron fence and its barrier of doctrine. And I would know again that in darkness God’s truth shines most clear.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Bible
Page Number: 213
Explanation and Analysis:
The Blue Sweater Quotes

The knitters of Barracks 28 became the praying heart of the vast diseased body that was Ravensbruck, interceding for all the camp—guards, under Betsie’s prodding, as well as prisoners. We prayed beyond the concrete walls for the healing of Germany, of Europe, of the world—as Mama had once done from the prison of a crippled body.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker), Betsie ten Boom
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
The Three Visions Quotes

When mention of the NSBers no longer brought a volley of self-righteous wrath, I knew the person’s healing was not far away. And the day he said, “These people you spoke of—I wonder if they’d care for some homegrown carrots,” then I knew the miracle had taken place.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 247
Explanation and Analysis:

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

Related Characters: Corrie ten Boom (speaker)
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis: