The flea infestation was so severe the prison guards refused to enter the building giving Betsie and Corrie the opportunity to conduct their secret Bible studies each night. A bit indignant, Corrie quipped, “Betsie, there is no way that even God can make you grateful for fleas.” But they stood there and gave God thanks for the fleas.

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1944 – Ravensbruck Concentration Camp – Germany: Sisters Betsie and Corrie ten Boom, prisoners No. 66729 and 66730, huddled under the dim light in the back of Barracks No. 28 where they could read their worn Bible, which they had miraculously smuggled into the prison. After rising at 4:30 a.m. that morning, they had worked for 11 hours at a Siemens factory loading steel, before returning to the barracks to find hope in the scriptures.

They were the daughters of Casper ten Boom, a jeweler and watchmaker in Haarlem, Holland. After his wife’s death from a brain hemorrhage, Casper raised the four children in a two-story house located above his watch shop. The ten Booms were devout Calvinists in the Dutch Reform Church.

In May 1940, after German military forces captured Holland in five days, the ten Booms turned their house into a place of refuge for Jews trying to escape from the Nazis. The watch shop made for a nice façade to disguise what was actually happening in the rooms above.  

The ten Booms built a secret room, a hiding place, behind a false wall in Corrie’s bedroom on the top floor of the house. The two by eight foot space held six people. An alarm buzzer at the entrance to the shop alerted the refugees to hide when the German Gestapo made security checks.  

On February 28, 1944, after a neighbor informed the Gestapo of the ten Booms clandestine activity, the entire family was arrested and taken to Scheveningen Prison, 40 miles away. There they were separated and unbeknownst to Betsie and Corrie, their 84-year-old father died 10 days later. After five months, Betsie and Corrie were miraculously re-united at Ravensbruck, Germany’s notorious women’s extermination camp.  

It is estimated that 117,000 women died or were exterminated at Ravensbruck between 1939 and 1944. Barracks 28, built to accommodate 400 people, housed 1,400 women who shared eight toilets. There were no individual beds or blankets. The women slept side-by-side on soiled, flea-infested straw. Many women starved to death or died of disease. Others died in the gas chambers. 

Each night before lights out, Betsie and Corrie read aloud from their old Bible while other women crowded around them to listen and pray. Within a short time, two services were required to accommodate the women who pressed in to hear daily encouragement.  

From Thessalonians Betsie read, “Rejoice always…Give thanks in all circumstances.” Corrie’s stared wondering what there was to give thanks for in that God-forsaken place.  Betsie reminded her to be thankful they were together and for their Bible. Betsie hesitated, “And we give thanks for these swarms of fleas that infest the straw in the barracks.”  

The flea infestation was so severe the prison guards refused to enter the building giving Betsie and Corrie the opportunity to conduct their secret Bible studies each night. A bit indignant, Corrie quipped, “Betsie, there is no way that even God can make you grateful for fleas.” But they stood there and gave God thanks for the fleas.

Betsie died at Ravensbruck on December 16, 1944. Before she died, she admonished Corrie, “We must tell them what we learned here. After the war we must travel the world telling them how good God is.” Only 10 days after Betsie died, Corrie, because of a clerical mistake, was released from Ravensbruck.  

For more than 30 years after the war, Corrie ten Boom traveled the world telling the story of their prison experience and about the goodness of God. Her books The Hiding Place and Tramp for the Lord became international best sellers. It is estimated that the ten Boom family saved 800 Jews from death in Holland. Corrie died on her 90th birthday, April 15, 1982.  

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for a future that only He can see.”     Corrie ten Boom

By Pete Black

From: United States

Website: http://petesperspective.com

Facebook URL” http://facebook.com/pete.black.750