Corrie Ten Boom

[TonyB]

Hi,

I absolutely do not believe there was a holocaust of Germans against Jews, however, I like to play devil's advocate so as to be more qualified.

With that in mind, can anyone cite any references that examine Corry Ten Boom's writings with respect to this subject? Now, I confess not having read her book, but I think she expresses a pro-the holocaust happened view. A quick search on my part yielded nothing.


Tony

[Moderator]

TonyB:
Welcome.
You might start by telling us what you know about this 'Corrie Ten Boom'.
Thanks, M1

[TonyB]

Thanks M1 for your welcome.

As to what I know of Corrie Ten Boom, for starters, I did a search here in CODOH and her name appears in a topic asking about US holocaust institutions and refers to "Corrie ten Boom Museum, "The Hiding Place" ."

She allegedly was a deeply spiritual Christian woman from Holland whose parent's hid Jews in their house so as not to be taken by the Gestapo. They ended up in camps.

From:
http://www.corrietenboom.com/history.htm

Because underground materials and extra ration cards were found in their home, the Ten Boom family was imprisoned. Casper (84 years old) died after only 10 days in Scheveningen Prison. When Casper was asked if he knew he could die for helping Jews, he replied, "It would be an honor to give my life for God's ancient people." Corrie and Betsie spent 10 months in three different prisons, the last was the infamous Ravensbruck Concentration Camp located near Berlin, Germany. Life in the camp was almost unbearable, but Corrie and Betsie spent their time sharing Jesus' love with their fellow prisoners. Many women became Christians in that terrible place because of Corrie and Betsie's witness to them. Betsie (59) died in Ravensbruck, but Corrie survived. Corrie’s nephew, Christiaan (24), had been sent to Bergen Belsen for his work in the underground, and never returned. Corrie’s brother, Willem (60), was also a ring leader in the Dutch underground. While in prison for this "crime," he contracted spinal tuberculosis and died shortly after the war.


From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrie_ten_Boom

Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom (Amsterdam, The Netherlands April 15, 1892 – Orange, California, April 15, 1983) was a Dutch Christian, who with her father and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Her family was arrested due to an informant in 1944, and her father died 10 days later at Scheveningen prison. A sister, brother and nephew were released, but Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where Betsie died. Ten Boom wrote many books and spoke frequently in the post-war years about her experiences. She also aided Holocaust survivors in the Netherlands. Her autobiography, The Hiding Place (1971) was later adapted as a film of the same name in 1975 and starred Jeannette Clift as ten Boom.


Tony

[Steven Willow]

Welcome TonyB. There are any number of dicredited individuals who are claimed to have save jews during the so called holocaust, with the most notorious example being Oskar Schindler.

This woman with the odd name, Corrie Ten Boom, seems to have died on her 91rst birthday which leads one to believe that she had not been harmed very much for her efforts - whatever they may have been. Do we have any real evidence that she did not harbor criminals or engage in smuggling, black marketeering, or other forms of generic criminality which she later concealed behind a veneer of Christian piety? For all we know this Corrie Ten Boom may have been nothing more than the Dutch Ma Barker masquerading as some form of jewish promoted saint.

In any case, a smattering of individuals providing some sort of pro-jewish service hardly proves that the Nazis attempted to exterminate jews.

[TonyB]

Hi Steven,

and thanks for the welcome.

Yeah, I hear ya.

As I said, I like to play devil's advocate and my interest extends beyond the parameters of this forum. For example, I got to the point where I wondered if camp brutality was rare and allegations lying propaganda. Incidentally, while I heard of ten Boom for awhile, she was brought up to me just yesterday by my daughter who was rather upset with me. I recently posted denierbud's auschwitz on Facebook and fell into a dialogue with a friend of her and her husband's as a consequence of this friend blasting Hitler. (I just briefly suggested maybe he was not as bad as we are told.)

ten Boom was in a German camp meaning even holocaust-believers do not believe it was a death camp, relegating all those to Poland. But, as an example, I was wondering about the alleged Gestapo brutality, again realizing that is a different subject than this forum's purpose.


Thanks again...

Tony

[Lohengrin]

Steven Willow: There are any number of dicredited individuals who are claimed to have save jews during the so called holocaust, with the most notorious example being Oskar Schindler.
This woman with the odd name, Corrie Ten Boom, seems to have died on her 91rst birthday which leads one to believe that she had not been harmed very much for her efforts - whatever they may have been. Do we have any real evidence that she did not harbor criminals or engage in smuggling, black marketeering, or other forms of generic criminality which she later concealed behind a veneer of Christian piety? For all we know this Corrie Ten Boom may have been nothing more than the Dutch Ma Barker masquerading as some form of jewish promoted saint.
In any case, a smattering of individuals providing some sort of pro-jewish service hardly proves that the Nazis attempted to exterminate jews."

I'm globally acquainted with the kind of folks like Corrie ten Boom. Straight Christians, not primarily anti-German, but first of all pro human.
Much Christians in Holland during the War supported refugees, were it resistance fighters, black marketeers, Jews or others sought by the Germans.

There were thousands of such "hiding places"in Holland, mostly to hide themselves and/or others for the Germans, searching for (payed) workers for Germany. Not really "special", those hiding places.

The story of Corrie ten Boom is first and foremost a Christian story. "Holocaust" had nothing to do with it. The Dutch people knew nothing about a "Holocaust", other than some Allied propaganda Lies, which they generally rejected. Truth is, that the Dutch people rightfully supposed that Jews were deported to harsh Labour Camps in the East, were many of them died, and members of the resistance were brought to penitentiary camps in Germany.

Ordinary Dutch people had nothing to fear of the occupying Germans. As an occupation Army, the Germans treated the Dutch population in general in a rather decent way. Later occupation Forces (e.g. Soviets, Americans, in Irak, Israel, etc. treated the civil people far more worse!) The only exceptions were people engaged in sabotage, espionage, subversive actions, collaborating with enemy forces, partisans, etc. Those were severily warned beforehand and if caught, were treated merciless.

Corrie ten Boom and her family knew very well what they were doing, and they wilfully took the risks. Of course, they were treated like prisoners, but not in a special rude way. Some Germans even respected this kind of people, because they understood that some of them were acting out of "national" and/or human feelings. This is why Corrie could"survive" and reached the age of 91.

Of course, this not so special story of Corrie ten Boom is nowadays overly magnified and instrumentalized by the Holocaust Industry, but in reality it was a kind of action many people in all times do.

I don't believe that Corrie ten Boom - as Steven Willow hold possible - was engaged in "harboring criminals, engaged in smuggling, black marketeering, etc." nor that she later "concealed forms of criminality behind a veneer of Christian piety." That was absolute not done in those Christian fundamentalist circles. Those people would rather give criminals in to the Police, instead of hide them.

The name "Corry ten Boom" is very common in The Netherlands, something like "Bessy Smith" in the US, and not "odd" at all.

[Steven Willow]

Lohengrin

Corrie ten Boom and her family knew very well what they were doing, and they wilfully took the risks. Of course, they were treated like prisoners, but not in a special rude way. Some Germans even respected this kind of people, because they understood that some of them were acting out of "national" and/or human feelings. This is why Corrie could"survive" and reached the age of 91.

According to this Corrie Ten Boom tale, while she survived to the ripe age of exactly 91, the other family members, Caspar, Betsie, Christiaan and Willem all died in German custody. This suggests your garden variety Hoaxter tear jerker where the mean, murderous Nazis always wind up murdering all but the extremely lucky few. These weren't jews, but does anyone think that jews aren't loving this little family story. The Hoaxters are pobably saying, "if 80% of Christian Corrie Ten Boom's family bit the dust, imagine what happened to the average jew family in Nazi custody."

This sort of non-jew holohoax ditty is designed to support the Hoax a hundred percent by creating the fraudulent notion that Nazis were murderous in many different contexts.

[Mkk]

Is the only evidence for the story her autobiography? I'm wondering if there's any documents on her alleged arrest, time in prison etc.

[TonyB]

My daughter is sending me the book and wants me to read it.

Lohengrin:
that the Dutch people rightfully supposed that Jews were deported to harsh Labour Camps in the East, were many of them died,

I didn't know German camps were sometimes quite harsh. What I have seen of Auschwitz (swimming pool, soccer field, orchestra, theater, medical services, etc.) caused me to reject allegations of harshness as propaganda. Perhaps harshness came to be as Germany was more and more being decimated by the war.

Anyway, I understand that her story does not prove a holocaust, but was wondering about its authenticity anyway.


Thanks all,

Tony

[Carto's Cutlass Supreme]

It was interesting reading this thread because it seemed nobody but the original poster had heard of Corrie Ten Boom.

For me, Corrie Ten Boom was HUGE in my childhood. 1976 Christian School, 6th grade and the movie The Hiding Place was one of the biggest things of the year. It's also the year the whole class read Anne Frank.

With what I know now, I'd like to watch The Hiding Place again. I can remember many scenes to this day.

For Protestant Christian America in the mid 70's, Corrie Ten Boom and the movie based on her life, The Hiding Place, was huge.

Chronologically there were epic holocaust myth moments all through the 1970's. World at War in 1974 (the intro to the series has pictures of people in flames, one looking a lot like Anne Frank); then The Hiding Place circa 1976, then the mini-series Holocaust imitating the format of Roots which had been huge.

[Kingfisher]

Lohengrin:
that the Dutch people rightfully supposed that Jews were deported to harsh Labour Camps in the East, were many of them died,

I didn't know German camps were sometimes quite harsh.

Just as the mainstream exaggerate this, and pretend everything was like Belsen at the end, so many Revisionists will underplay it. I think the reality is that conditions varied enormously from camp to camp and time to time. I recommend reading the Buchenwald/Dora experiences of Paul Rassinier, the "Father" of Holocaust Revisionism. Rassinier was a socialist and a resistant.

http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/RassArch/PRdebunk/PRdebunk1.html

Rassinier does make clear that the day-to-day supervision was in the hands of the inmate Kapos, who were drawn originally from the common criminals and later from the politicals (communists) and that both of these groups ran things for their own benefit and were frequently brutal. Rassinier says he survived on food parcels sent by his sister and he returned a 100% invalid.

On the other hand, it is clear from some of the Spielberg interviews in Eric Hunt's film Last Days of the Big Lie that conditions in Auschwitz at certain times and for certain prisoners were quite humane. During the typhus epidemics they must have been hellish.

[Lohengrin]

Kingfisher: "Just as the mainstream exaggerate this, and pretend everything was like Belsen at the end, so many Revisionists will underplay it. I think the reality is that conditions varied enormously from camp to camp and time to time. I recommend reading the Buchenwald/Dora experiences of Paul Rassinier, the "Father" of Holocaust Revisionism. Rassinier was a socialist and a resistant."

I totally agree with Kingfisher's observation.

When I said "harsh Labour Camps", I spoke of the perception of ordinary, non-Jewish people in Holland. They saw how Jews were removed out of their houses (mostly at night by the Dutch Police!), how they were gathered together, how deported in trains, etc. and they supposed that treatment in Poland surely wasn't promising. Moreover, when families were removed from their houses, put on trains to unknown camps in barracks, that's quite a dramatic experience if compared with the comfortable family life before.

So, much people feel sorry for the Jews, and some who had the means, tried to hide and/or guide them, especially children.

[MorrisT]

Wasn't there another version of the Ten Boom saga produced in the 90's?

[Hektor]

It was interesting reading this thread because it seemed nobody but the original poster had heard of Corrie Ten Boom.

For me, Corrie Ten Boom was HUGE in my childhood. 1976 Christian School, 6th grade and the movie The Hiding Place was one of the biggest things of the year. It's also the year the whole class read Anne Frank.

With what I know now, I'd like to watch The Hiding Place again. I can remember many scenes to this day.

For Protestant Christian America in the mid 70's, Corrie Ten Boom and the movie based on her life, The Hiding Place, was huge.

Chronologically there were epic holocaust myth moments all through the 1970's. World at War in 1974 (the intro to the series has pictures of people in flames, one looking a lot like Anne Frank); then The Hiding Place circa 1976, then the mini-series Holocaust imitating the format of Roots which had been huge.

I just found out Corrie Ten Boom was in South Africa as well. That is now during the old Government days. She was accommodated by people of the Reformed/Calvinist churches here. She visited to speak to the congregations and possibly other audiences as well. But given the prominence that churches had during that era, I'd guess most meetings were at churches. Educated Afrikaners can understand Dutch, but there are some substantial differences with Afrikaans that can easily lead to misunderstandings, which is were imagination sometimes chips in. I do however believe that this women here represents relatively accurately what she experienced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1WJmuh6_h4&t=163s

And yes, it's the usual emotional approach.
* Claim Christian Virtue
* Tell people about your suffering.
* Add some religious elements into this.
* 'Forgiveness' is a big issue there.
It's a form of soft gas lighting.


What Corrie told was of course not verifiable for anyone. For sure not by anybody in South Africa. It should be noted that the academic historians in South Africa were quite skeptical, when it came to the Holocaust. There was however not much of engagement then..

Corrie ten Boom admits that she was involved in a rationing scam. Which is a form of soft sabotage during war time. 'Of course to help the Jews and the Resistance'. She got a trial before she was sent to Ravensbrueck. I think that many details are more or less true in her narrative, but that it got embellished for dramatic reasons. After all she made a living from selling stories to publishers and audiences.

There is more to the story. I believe that she was detained in Ravensbrueck, but suspect that a lot of what she is telling is actually embellished.
She does not say that she witnessed homicidal gasssings herself, but it seems she simply assumes that this is somehow true.

[greatmystery]

Through the course of my research I found that Corrie ten Boom said she saw gas chambers. However they weren't even have said to been there until after she was out of the camp. She might have been lying or she might have just heard rumors that she believed. No way to tell for sure.
https://www.holocaust.claims/survivors/ ... vensbruck/