She went to his house one evening, and when he asked how many ration cards she needed, "I opened my mouth to say, 'Five,'" Ten Boom wrote in The Hiding Place. Through her charitable work, Ten Boom knew many people in Haarlem and remembered a family with a disabled daughter, whose father was a civil servant who was now in charge of the local ration-card office. Every non-Jewish Dutch person had received a ration card, the requirement for obtaining weekly food coupons. They had plenty of room, but wartime shortages meant that food was scarce. A buzzer could be heard in the house to warn the refugees to get into the room as quickly as possible during security sweeps through the neighborhood. A ventilation system was installed for the occupants. The secret room was in Corrie's bedroom behind a false wall and would hold 6 people. Thus the Ten Booms created "The Hiding Place" (Dutch: De Schuilplaats or de Béjé, pronounced "bayay", an abbreviation of the street, Barteljorisstraat). The refugee work which Ten Boom and her sister did at the Beje became known by the Dutch Resistance, which sent an architect to the Ten Boom home to build a secret room adjacent to the room for the Jews who were in hiding and an alert buzzer that could be used to warn the refugees to get into the room as quickly as possible. Ĭorrie and her sister Betsie opened their home to Jewish refugees and members of the resistance movement, and as a result, they were sought after by the Gestapo and its Dutch counterpart. The family never sought to convert any of the Jews who stayed with them. A devoted reader of the Old Testament, he believed that the Jews were the " chosen people" and told the woman, "In this household, God's people are always welcome." The family then became very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees and honouring the Jewish Sabbath. Casper readily agreed that she could stay with them although the police headquarters was only half a block away. She heard that the Ten Booms had previously helped their Jewish neighbors, the Weils, and asked if they could help her too. In May 1942, a well-dressed woman came to the Ten Booms' with a suitcase in hand and told them that she was a Jew, her husband had been arrested several months earlier, her son had gone into hiding and Occupation authorities had recently visited her so she was afraid to go back. One of their restrictions was the banning of the youth club. In May 1940, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. Some important tenets of their faith included the fact that the Jews were precious to God and that all people are created equal – powerful motivation for the selfless rescue work she would later become involved in. She and her family were Calvinist Christians in the Dutch Reformed Church, and their faith inspired them to serve their society, which they did by offering shelter, food and money to those who were in need. Over the next decade, in addition to working in her father's shop, she established a youth club for teenage girls, which provided religious instruction and classes in the performing arts, sewing, and handicrafts. She trained to be a watchmaker herself, and in 1922, she became the first woman to be licensed as a watchmaker in the Netherlands. Even when Betsie recovered, Corrie kept her place in the shop and Betsie managed the housework, to the delight of them both. She quickly discovered that she loved the "business side" of the watch shop, and she organized the financial proceedings by developing a system of billings and ledgers. However, when a cold sent Betsie, Corrie's sister, to bed for an extended period, Corrie took Betsie's place and began to work in the family watch shop. Corrie spent the first part of her life in charge of the housekeeping. The Ten Boom family lived above Casper's watch shop in what Corrie called "the Beje," a house named for the Barteljorisstraat where they lived. Her father was fascinated by the craft of watchmaking and often became so engrossed in his work that he forgot to charge customers for his services. Her three maternal aunts, Tante Bepa, Tante Jans, and Tante Anna, lived with the family. Corrie had three older siblings: Betsie, Willem, and Nollie. She was named after her mother but known as Corrie all her life.
Corrie ten Boom was born on 15 April 1892 in Haarlem, Netherlands, the youngest child of Casper ten Boom, a jeweler and watchmaker, and Cornelia (commonly known as "Cor") Johanna Arnolda, née Luitingh, whom he married in 1884.
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