While my husband, David, and I are with a group of ONU students studying abroad in Germany for about a month, I took a long weekend to go visit Amsterdam. This was the “free” weekend of the study abroad experience when the students could plan their own trip. David has friends he wanted to visit around Germany. While I really like his friends, I have really been wanting to go to Amsterdam. My son, Caleb, lives in the Black Forest region of Germany (in the corner of Germany that borders France and Switzerland). He works at a private, bilingual Christian school there as a missionary. He has been there three years. My sister and her family have served with this school for almost 15 years. Travel between that region and Munich is not convienent and it was just as long for both of us to travel to Amsterdam. So Caleb and I met in Amsterdam on a Thursday morning and are spending the next 3-4 days together exploring the city. I had a couple specific places I wanted to see: The Corrie Ten Boom House (from her book The Hiding Place) and the Anne Frank museum. It really paid off to do the research about these places and book online ahead of time. But I had lots of hints and help from my sister, Anna, who has visited here before.
Anyway, I got up at 2:00 am in Munich and David helped me take the buses to get to the main train station and then I took a couple trains for the 8 hour trip to Amsterdam Centraal station. Then I took a tram to a “suburb” of Amsterdam about 30 minutes away. The town of Haarlem is much smaller than Amsterdam and just adorable. I could have stayed there a week exploring and wandering the town. It was like a mini version of the big city. However, the reason we went there was to see the Corrie Ten Boom House.
Caleb and I met at the train station in Haarlem. Since I hadn’t seen him in person for 5 months, it was good to give him a real hug.
This was my first sight of a canal. The ones in Haarlem are quieter and prettier than the city - obviously.
This storefront looked amazing - and old!
This is the main market square. I think this is the church that the Ten Boom family went to to listen to concerts. They had a family member that worked at the church as an usher or something and would let them in a side door and listen to the concerts from a back hallway for free. In the days of little recorded music, this was such a treat!
We made it! This is the actually Ten Boom watch shop!
I’ve read the book “The Hiding Place” at least twice, and once in the last few weeks just before coming here. I highly recommend it. The basic story is that Corrie Ten Boom was a single lady watchmaker in her 50s living a quiet life in Haarlem with her widowed father and older sister when WWII started. Her father was a master watchmaker and her whole family were devout Christians. When it became clear that the Jews were in danger and needed help, Corrie and her family became part of the resistance organization. They helped get food ration coupons to people in hiding, they organized efforts to sneak people out of the city and into hiding in the country, etc. Eventually they ended up hiding 6 people in their own home - in a secret room. Ultimately they were caught and Corrie, her father and sister, Betsy were sent to prison and then concentration camps. Her father died in custody and her sister died in Ravensbruck concentration camps. Corrie survived and spent the rest of her life traveling the world using her experiences and stories of God’s miraculous work in her life to spread the Gospel. When she wrote her first book “The Hiding Place”, she became famous and very well known. She ended up meeting several of the Germans who either knew her, hurt her, etc. She forgave them all and her testimony about that is very powerful. I really wanted to see the place where so much had happened.
This is the window in the alley to the family’s main dining room. The little triangle sign in the window was an advertisement for a brand of watch. It became their safety signal. When the sign was in the window, it was safe for resistance workers to go inside and talk freely. If the sign was missing, then there was someone in the shop like a German officer, policeman, or another reason it was not safe.
After the war, Corrie traveled all over the world - well into her 70s, 80s and 90s!! This map outside the museum shows some of the places she went.
Some watches on display from Corrie’s father - Casper Ten Boom.
You were not allowed to take photos in the museum except for the tiny bedroom at the very top of the house that held the hidden room. But I need to just give some of my impressions. It is so small. I know that as an American, I am dreadfully spoiled by vast spaces. My own home is so large, much more than I need. But this house was just so small - and I held so many people! The house is actually two building connected by a circular, narrow, steep staircase the middle. It is amazing to me that these ladies and their 80 year old father climbed up and down these steps all day every day. There is only enough room for one person at a time on the steps. The two buildings do not line up and the floors are all on different levels. And the house is SO narrow! As a result, to get from room to room, you have to use the stairs.
The secret room. When the Ten Boom family got involved in resistance work, an expert architect came to visit their house to decide where to put a secret room. He specifically put it up high - because the police would start their search at the bottom floor and this would give them a little more precious time to hide. They smuggled the bricks into the shop so no one would know they were doing anything. For example, some bricks came inside of hollow grandfather clocks.
Yes, that is me and my rear…this is the linen cabinet that they crawled through to get into the secret room. There was a pulley system behind the cabinet to lower a board to make the back of the cabinet when they were inside.
You can get an idea of just how small this room it! It was Corrie’s bedroom and her bed was right were the guide is standing. The entrance to the secret room is on the left - through the cabinet. They hid 6 people in there - there was an air vent for fresh air, but they only had a pot for a toilet. The Jews that hid here were not discovered by the police when they raided the Ten Boom house. They all survived.
This was a tiny spot in the stairway right outside of Corrie’s bedroom where they hid the extra food ration stamps. The police found this and that is the charge they used to arrest Corrie, her father and sister. However, they did not find the six human beings hidden merely feet away.
In another part of the museum was this letter that Corrie wrote to the person who betrayed her family and told the police about their resistance work. In it, she forgives him and tells him about how much Jesus loves him.
I heard about these “stumbling stones” while doing some research about our trip to Germany. Apparently they are all over Europe.
Basically, these small 10 cm plaques are placed on the sidewalk, outside of places were people lived who were taken and persecuted or killed by the Nazis. They give the person’s name, date of birth, and then details about when they were taken, where and the place and date of death. Many, many of them say death in Auschwitz. They are organized generationally, with the top row the grandparents, the next row their children, etc.
We saw these stolpersteine in Haarlem, and then I briefly wondered why there were not any in front of the Corrie Ten Boom house - until I remembered that all the Jews hiding there SURVIVED! I did wonder why there is not one for Corrie’s father and sister who died for helping the Jews, but I never found out an answer.
This is the train station in Haarlem. Corrie tells some stories about traveling on the train with her father. This station looked like it was probably the same place.
Back in Amsterdam, we found our AirB&B - a houseboat!!! Around the corner was an Indonesian restaurant where we got supper. The people behind the counter were very kind and friendly!
We paid 17 Euros for a box of food with all sorts of different dishes in it. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it!
Caleb is the foodie…he LOVED his.
More adventures to write about..I have about 4 more blog posts planned just about our first full day in Amsterdam!
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