Corrie's House

 I could hardly sleep last night because I was so eager to take the train to Haarlem and visit Corrie Ten Boom's house.

 It was less than fifteen minutes on the train!

Don't you love all the beautiful wood features of the Haarlem station?

I have read about Corrie for so many years.  I could hardly believe we were standing before her childhood home.  We arrived about an hour early.  Smile.

It looks so small!

If you have read the books, you know about the Grote Markt, Corrie's neighborhood square.

Her street.

The family's place of worship

There are all kinds of avenues off of the main square.  Cozy, right?

Corrie stepped here.

The watch shop is open and you can buy a Ten Boom watch.

When this sign was in the window, it was safe for Jews to come in to hide.  

I watched this sparkly pigeon while we waited.

Finally, Betty came to let us in.  She was a wonderful guide and we were the only ones on the tour due to a group cancellation.  

Winding stairs!  Steep!  The house was built in (brace yourself!) 1450.

The interior of the house seemed bigger than I thought it would be.  The sitting room was so cozy.  Betty told us the story.  She knows Jesus, we could tell.  She passionately told us about the family's heart for the Jews and their LOVE for Jesus, our Savior!
And then she took us into Corrie's bedroom where the six Jews hid for two and a half days after the family was taken to the police station.

This is the small space where they crawled through to get into the tiny hiding place.  Betty thought it was important that I try it.  I think they were much thinner than Pom Pom.

There was a bucket for a lavatory and it filled up quickly.  There was NO room to lie down.  

Here is the secret spot where the family hid the extra ration books they needed to feed all their Jewish guests.

I didn't know about the roof, but high on top of the skinny house is where the Ten Booms had their garden.  They also brought their Jewish friends up here and because they entertained so much as a matter of course, nobody suspected that they were committing illegal activity.

Sorry I didn't dress up for you.  I've been a very casual tourist.  

I had to take one last photo of Corrie's room.

Initially, people who were part of the resistance hid Jews in their attics and basements, but that became unsafe because the Nazi's knew to look there.

Betty told us that because "we all like to have a hot meal in the evening" the ten Boom's used the cans the food came in to create a make shift stove.

This is what the ration cards looked like. Corrie was imprisoned for ration card fraud.

Corrie loved to stitch and often used this to illustrate how we tend to look at our winding path of life and see all the tangles and knots, but God is working and this is how our lives will look when God is finished with us.

Corrie stitched this lovely Holland needlepoint piece.  

This is Casper ten Boom's Bible.  

The house is really two houses hooked together by the winding staircases.  This is the downstairs "garden".

I can't put into words how meaningful it was for me to walk through this house of love.  I wish I could have heard the long ago voices reading from the Bible each morning and evening.  Many people gathered in this tiny home.  Here, many people heard about the incredible God who made us and bought us.  If you haven't had an opportunity to read The Hiding Place, you may want to.  

We had lunch and boarded the train again.  Tomorrow we'll head home!

I thoroughly LOVED the Netherlands.  I would like to come back again someday.  Can you see the new fangled wind mill?