The Watchmaker's Daughter by Larry Loftis

Those who have read Corrie ten Boom's autobiography, The Hiding Place will relish this new, well-researched offering by New York Times award winning author, Larry Loftis. The Watchmaker's Daughter begins by setting the stage for the drama that would play out during World War II and the Nazi occupation of Holland. In Chapter 1, The Watchmakers, the history of the ten Boom family and the start of their watchmaking business is described. The story really begins in 1837 when Willem ten Boom rented the house at Barteljorisstraat 19 in Haarlem, Holland. In 1844, Willem, now married to Geertruida van Gogh, began praying for "God's ancient people", the Jews. This practice would be passed on to his children and grandchildren in the years to come.

Geertruida passed away from tuberculosis in 1856 and in 1858, Willem married Elizabeth Bell. Their first son, Casper eventually opened his own watchmaking shop. After the death of his father, Casper and his wife, Cor, along with their family of four children, Elisabeth (Betsie),  Willem, Arnolda (Nollie) and Cornelia (Corrie), returned to Haarlem, where they took over the shop. It was Corrie who expressed interest in continuing the family business, while Willem decided to study theology at the University of Leiden. Eventually he became pastor at a church in Zuylen near Utrecht. Willem became interested in the development of anti-Semitism, which was particularly evident in both France and Germany. 

Corrie's mother died in 1921, the year that Corrie became the first licensed female watchmaker in Holland. Meanwhile, Willem continued studying the evil of anti-Semitism and accepted a position as a special missionary to the Jews in Amsterdam. Incredibly, he studied at the Institutum Judaicum in Leipzig, Germany where for the next three years he completed work on his doctoral thesis, "The birth of modern racial anti-Semitism in France and Germany". At this time, Adolf Hitler was writing Mein Kampf which was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926. Willem's dissertation was published in 1928, just five years before Hitler would rise to power in Germany. 

After finishing his Ph.D, Willem began his ministry to Jews in Amsterdam. In 1933, German president Paul von Hindenburg installed Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany and the persecution of Jews began. Boycotts of Jewish businesses, and the barring of Jews from all civil service jobs, schools and universities included, as well as the prohibition of Jews from practicing law or medicine became the law. The Nuremberg Laws, enacted in 1935 stripped German Jews of citizenship and made it illegal for them to marry "Aryans". Persecution of Jews and Christians who opposed the persecution was ramped up after the 1936 Olympics. 

While the situation remained normal in Holland, in March 1938, Germany annexed Austria and the persecution of Austrian Jews began. The Munich Agreement between Germany, France and Britain did little to stop Hitler. The attempted assassination of Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan in retaliation for the forced transport of eighteen thousand German Jews brought on Kristallnacht - Night of the Broken Glass on November 9th. 

The first hint of the coming storm in Holland arrived within the Beje when Casper had to fire a young German apprentice, Otto Altschuler after they learned he brutally assaulted a man the shop had hired to help with repairs. That man was the elderly, gentle Mr. Christoffels.

As Hitler began his march through Europe, Holland was invaded on May 10, 1940. Despite fierce resistance, the Germans quickly occupied the Netherlands and began to target the Jewish population with ever-restrictive laws. As the persecution raged on in 1941, Corrie and her father, Casper began discussing and planning how they would help their Jewish neighbours. Soon they began hiding Jews who came to Beje for help, sending them on to safe houses. But this was only the beginning of resistance by the ten Boom family and in particular Corrie and her brother Willem. They quickly became involved in the underground, and built a secret room at the back of their house which became "the hiding place". What was once just a simple task of hiding Jews for a night before they could be moved, became a high stakes "cat and mouse" game with the Nazis. Corrie and her family would not escape unscathed.

Discussion

The Watchmaker's Daughter is a moving account of the life of Corrie ten Boom, beginning from her early life, through the war years as she and her family worked to save Jews, her arrest and imprisonment in various concentration camps, and her ministry after the war to both camp survivors and the German people.

Loftis who had authored a number of narrative nonfiction books focused on World War II espionage, was looking for new subject material. He knew about Corrie ten Boom and that her experience focused on the Dutch Resistance - potentially a new topic to explore. Corrie had written six books about her family and the war, including The Hiding Place, but much of what happened was not included. Loftis was able to draw on a number of key primary sources to write The Watchmaker's Daughter: long time refugee Hans Poley's Return to the Hiding Place, nephew Peter van Woerden's memoir The Secret Place, and Corrie's own collection of letters, photos and much more which were held in an archival collection at Wheaton College. Loftis also wanted to focus on Corrie's efforts after the war, to heal the wounds suffered by so many, including the German people. 

Writing The Watchmaker's Daughter had a lasting impact on Loftis as well. He writes in his Author's Note that "...writing about Corrie's message of faith, hope, love, and forgiveness was an empowering experience for me..."  Loftis succeeds in capturing this message throughout The Watchmaker's Daughter. In fact, the most inspirational aspect of Corrie's story is not her survival, but the heroic virtue displayed by her entire family, but most especially by her sister Betsie, in the face of great cruelty. The ten Boom's encounters with Lieutenant Hans Rahms at Scheveningen Prison, proved that such virtue could change minds and hearts. 

Loftis takes care to set Corrie's story within the larger context of events that were occurring each year during World War II. For example, he includes not only historical details from the war, but also mentions Audrey Hepburn who played a part in the Dutch Resistance, and Anne Frank and her family who were in hiding in Amsterdam, until their betrayal in August of 1944. There are also many black and white photographs throughout, helping readers to know many of the people in Corrie's story.

The Watchmaker's Daughter is ultimately a story of hope and forgiveness. This is very evident in Corrie's struggle both during the war, but even more so after the war. Especially poignant, is the account of her meeting the man, who had been an SS guard in a shower room at Ravensbruck, at a speaking event in Munich. Repulsed at the sight of this man who had been so cruel, Corrie struggled to offer him the forgiveness he asked for. And yet she did, through God's grace, despite this man not apologizing for what he did to her.

To those who loved The Hiding Place, this work provides a richer context and backstory, informing readers as to how the ten Boom's resistance to the Nazis began a century earlier with their immense love and charity towards God's "ancient people", the Jews. Loftis lays out the history that shaped a family and their courageous resistance at great personal cost.

Loftis offers his readers a list of major people in the Dramatis Personae at the front of the book. This includes the members of the ten Book family, refugees in the Beje and the Dutch Resistance. At the back of the book, The Rest of the Story informs readers of the fate of many of the major German and Dutch people in the book. An Appendix offers a list of Jewish or Dutch diver refugees at the Beje during the war. The author has also provided an extensive Notes section for each chapter. Maps of Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Germany during World War II would have been much appreciated.

The Watchmaker's Daughter will appeal to not just those interested in Corrie ten Boom, but also those interested in  World War II history and resistance.

Book Details:

The Watchman's Daughter by Larry Loftis
New York:  HarperCollins Publishers     2023
370 pp.

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

The Hiding Place is a moving account of a Dutch family's work in the underground to save Jews during the Holocaust. It is considered a classic in Christian literature today.

Cornelia Ten Boom was the youngest daughter of Casper ten Boom and Cornelia Johanna Arnolda Luitingh. Corrie as she came to be called, was born on April 15, 1892. The ten Boom family was comprised of three older surviving children; Elizabeth who was called Betsie, Willem, and Arnolda Johanna known as Nollie. The ten Boom family belonged to the Dutch Reformed church and were very devout.

Strongly believing that the world should know the story of what happened in Holland, Corrie wrote about her family's experiences in The Hiding Place. In the book, the story begins with her family's party celebrating the 100th anniversary of their watchmaking and repair shop located in Haarlem. The shop had been founded by her grandfather Willem ten Boom. It is 1937, only a few years before the horror that will soon consume Europe and come to be known as the Holocaust. Corrie is forty-five years old, her older sister Betsie is fifty-two.

In celebration of their anniversary, the shop and family home begins filling with bouquets of flowers from friends and patrons. In addition to Nollie and Willem attending, both of whom now have their own homes, the family is visited by many people including the mayor of Haarlem, the postman and policemen.

Soon talk at the party turns to the worsening situation in Germany with the arrival of Willem who is accompanied by a dazed and injured young Jewish man. Willem, who runs a home for elderly Jews in Hilversum tells Corrie and her family that the man, Herr Gutlieber whose lower face is badly burned was set on fire by boys in Munich. He managed to flee Germany on a milk truck, arriving this morning in Hilversum.

Corrie remembers that Willem had been studying what was going on in Germany for years. In 1927 he wrote about the unprecedented "contempt for human life" that was growing in the country. He noted the German clockmakers who were suddenly and mysteriously no longer open for business and that they were all Jewish.

There are more signs that things in Germany are deteriorating when Corrie's father hires a young German apprentice named Otto to work at the shop. A member of the Hitler Youth, Otto comes only once to listen to Corrie's family's nightly reading of the scriptures. The Old Testament, according to Otto, "is the Jews' 'Book of Lies' ". Soon the ten Booms learn of other disturbing events. Otto's landlady discovers a large knife in his bed. But it is Otto's cruel treatment of the old clockmender, Christoffels that moves Corrie's father to fire him. Willem reveals that Germany is teaching its young people not to value the elderly who they consider to "have no value to the state."

War comes to Holland in 1940 with the invasion of the country by Germany. For five days the country's army attempts to fight off the Nazis but eventually they are overwhelmed and surrender, with the Queen fleeing to England.

At first life in occupied Holland is little changed except for the late curfew, the presence of German soldiers, and the takeover of the Dutch press which prints German propaganda. At night Corrie and her family listen to the aerial dogfights between the English and German planes, as Germany uses Holland as a launching point for the bombing of England.

But gradually the true horror of the occupation begins to creep into daily life. Minor attacks on Dutch Jews grow into bolder attacks and outright discrimination. Parks, libraries, restaurants and theatres all ban Jews who are now required to wear the six point Jewish star on their clothing. People begin to disappear, as evidenced by the unclaimed watches in the ten Boom shop.

Corrie and Betsie and their father begin to discuss how they might have to help their Jewish neighbours. That chance comes much sooner than expected, in November of 1941. One day Corrie and Betsie watch as German soldiers ransack Weil's Furriers, ordering Mr. Weil out of his store at gunpoint, ransacking their apartment and stealing their furs. Needing to find a safe place for Mr. Weil and make sure his wife knows not to return home from Amsterdam, Corrie takes the train to Willem in Hilversum. With the help of Willem's son Kik, they find a safe place for the Weils.

As the situation for Dutch Jews worsens, Corrie and her family become increasingly involved in helping them. And their efforts of resistance do not go unnoticed. On Sunday, May 10, 1942, Peter, who is the organist at the Dutch Reformed church in Velsen, plays an inspiring rendition of the Dutch national anthem, Wilhelmus, which has been forbidden by the Nazis. He is arrested in the evening. Each evening, the ten Booms found Dutch Jews making their way to their alley door, all in need of a hiding place from the Nazis. Hoping to get help from Willem, Corrie is told that he now is being watched all the time and that it is better if she seeks out her own resources to help those coming to her. 

Needing ration cards for the Jews who come to the Beje, Corrie seeks out Fred Koornstra who used to read the electric meter at the Beje. As the needs grow, Corrie begins to realize that they are friends with half of Haarlem: nurses and clerks and people in almost all the businesses. She would trust God to lead her to the people who could help. But the real break comes when Kik takes her to a meeting of the "underground" There "Pickwick" whose real name was Herman Sluring, introduces Corrie to a man, whom she only ever knew as Mr. Smit - the name used by all members of the underground - who told her she needed a secret room. This "Mr. Smit" would turn out to be one of Europe's finest architects and it was he who built the "hiding place" in the ten Boom's home.

As the hunt for Holland's Jews intensifies, Corrie and her family find they are taking more and more risks. Soon this dangerous work will cost some their freedom, others, their lives. Their faith in God and his providence are their guiding light through the darkest of times.

Discussion

The Hiding Place is much more than just a recounting of one family's experiences during the Nazi occupation of Holland. It is much more than a memoir of Dutch resistance. It is a testament to Christian faith acted upon in a time of great evil. Corrie and Betsie were determined to follow God's will in everything in their lives, sometimes at great cost to themselves and those they loved.

Corrie became an integral part of the Dutch underground, obtaining ration cards, helping Jews to safe houses and even allowing the Beje to undergo renovations creating a secret room. Willem was involved in hiding Jews, along with his son Kik. There was never any question in Corrie and her family's minds as to whether they would help their Jewish neighbours. Service was already an integral part of their lives. It was only a matter of how. Their Christian faith demanded nothing less.

The ten Boom family's life was framed and informed entirely by their Christian faith. Casper ten Boom read scripture to the family at 8:30 in the morning before beginning his work in the watch shop and at night before bed, asking "God's blessing on us through the night." Their mother visited the sick and the poor, "cooking and sewing for the needy in the neighborhood...". Every event in their lives was informed by their Dutch Reformed Protestant faith. For example,  Corrie accompanied her mother who was visiting a young mother whose newborn baby had just died. This experience of death haunted Corrie and she became so distraught that later at home she was unable to eat dinner. Her fear was for the death of her father, Mama and her sister Betsie. Her father uses this moment to impart some of his faith and wisdom, reminding Corrie that he gives her the train ticket just before boarding, when travelling to Amsterdam. "...And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things, too. Don't run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need -- just in time."

L to R: Nollie, Corrie, Casper, Cornelia, Willem and Betsie

Life was lived in service to others in the ten Boom household and Corrie's mother and aunts were exemplary in that regard. Corrie mentions the numerous ways her mother and aunts served their friends and neighbours. Her mother is described as having knit "caps and baby dresses", "composing cheery messages for shutins" When Tante Jans is diagnosed with diabetes, then a terminal illness, she decides to spend what time is left for her, organizing a center for the soldiers, writing and fund raising. When her disease progresses and she has only weeks left, Tante Jans is distraught because she believes she has not done enough in her life to merit salvation. Her worry shows how important service to others was in the ten Boom family and had been for generations.

Perhaps Corrie's birth on Good Friday, April 15, 1892 was a sign of what was to come. She was not expected to survive but she did and grew up to be a woman with strong Christian principles. During an aerial battle over their city, Corrie experienced a premonition in the form of a vision about her family.

While praying for their country as the Nazi invasion began, Corrie experienced this following terrifying vision. "Then as I watched, a kind of odd, old farm wagon -- old fashioned and out of place in the middle of a city -- came lumbering across the square pulled by four enormous black horses. To my surprise I saw that I myself was sitting in the wagon. And Father too! And Betsie! There were many others, some strangers, some friends. I recognized Pickwick and Toos, Willem and young Peter. All together we were slowly being drawn across the square behind those horses. We couldn't get off the wagon, that was the terrible thing. It was taking us away -- far away, I felt -- but we didn't want to go...." At the time Corrie had no idea what the vision could possibly mean, but years later, when she, her sister Betsie, Peter, Nollie, Pickwick and her father are taken away after a raid on her house, Corrie remembers the dream. It was a warning, perhaps to help her prepare for what was to come.

As the occupation continued, Corrie was deeply conflicted as to how they would work in the underground given the rumours about the types of resistance involved. "The rumors tended to get more spectacular with each repetition. But always they 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?"

It is something that Corrie and her family struggled with as the months went by. After a search by German soldiers for young men for forced work, the family argued over whether it was permissible to lie to protect someone. While Nollie believed that "God honors truth-telling with perfect protection!" as her daughter Corky had just done. But Corrie is not so certain.

The title of Corrie's autobiography is more than just a reference to the secret room in the Beje. It is also a spiritual reference, one Corrie did not realize until she was in prison. Watching ants hiding in the wall of her cell Corrie understands the significance of having a special safe place in Christ. "And suddenly I realized that this too was a message, ...For I too had a hiding place when things were bad. Jesus was this place, the Rock cleft for me..." Later on while suffering from edema in the hospital at Ravensbruck, Corrie wonders what if....and then remembers, "There are no 'ifs' in God's kingdom. I could hear her soft voice saying it. His timing is perfect. His will is our hiding place. Lord Jesus, keep me in your will...."

This touching account is well worth reading, not only for the heroic efforts of the ten Booms, but more for the remarkable spiritual gems contained within.

To learn more about the ten Boom family The Corrie ten Boom House website (https://www.corrietenboom.com/en/family-ten-boom) has many interesting details.

ten Book family image: https://renovare.org/articles/this-too-is-in-his-hands

Book Details:

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
Crossing Classics
228 pp.