By now, every student at Coffee County Central High School has seen dozens of accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust. We’ve been taught lesson after lesson on this topic for years.

The thing is, no matter how many times you’ve heard the story of the Holocaust, you’ve never heard it quite like this. “The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom brings a whole new perspective to the overarching story of World War II.

“The Hiding Place” tells the story of the Ten Booms, a Christian family living in Holland during World War II. The father, often called Opa by the family, and their close-knit community, worked as a watchmaker, and the family’s home was situated above the shop.

After the invasion of Holland by Germany in 1940, the Jews of the country had their rights slowly stripped away. Then, the Nazis began to imprison and ship Jews to concentration camps.

The home of the Ten Boom’s eventually became a safe place for Jews to hide while they sought placement in one of the safe houses that had been established across the country. 

The operation was eventually discovered by the German police, and the Ten Booms were arrested. The majority of the family was released from the prison, but Corrie and Betsie (her sister) were eventually transported to the concentration camp in Ravensbruck, Germany.

The sisters were able to sneak a Bible into the concentration camp, and, through daily readings and worship services in their barracks, they used their dreadful situation to share the gospel of hope throughout the camp.

Reading about the bravery and faith of Ten Boom and her family gives the reader an entirely new and bold perspective on life. 

While the book is very focused on the faith that the Ten Boom family had in Jesus, the book is a wonderful and compelling read for someone of any religion or background.

The book expresses a message of selflessness that our world is in dire need of, and it even speaks a lot about seeking to help those who have hurt you.

Ten Boom, near the end of the book, went on to create a rehabilitation center for Holocaust survivors, where she helped former prisoners and officers move on past the trauma they had experienced.

The writing style is very simple and easy to understand, so even someone who isn’t an avid reader would be able to breeze through it.

One downside to the book is that the beginning is quite slow, as it takes some time for her to get through the exposition of the world she grew up in. This, however, can be seen in almost any book.

Another thing the reader should be aware of is the heavy topics that this book plays with. There is quite a bit of death, fear, and brutality, but that is to be expected with a book about a tragic event like the Holocaust. 

To sum everything up, “The Hiding Place” is a stunning read, and I do not doubt that anyone who reads this book will come out a different person in the end. This book has even given me a renewed mindset in regards to my faith and a fresh outlook on life.