The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: BOOK REPORT The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom For in that instance, reality broke through the numbness that had grown in me since the invasion. At any minute there might be a rap on this door. These children, this mother and father, might be ordered to the back of a truck - The Hiding Place (Ten Boom, Sherrill & Sherrill, 2009, p. 90). The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom, with the assistance of Elizabeth and John Sherrill is a story of fear, faith, and miracles set within the truthful remembrance of World War II. In Haarlem, Holland, the ten Boom family is put into the position of occupation by the Germans in which they see the tragedy of their Jewish friends herded onto trucks and feel the need to act. Their father sets up a hidden room in their house in which they can help those who come to them to hide from being taken. Several emotional levels of experience are explored within the novel. The fear of being taken, the reaction to adjusting to terrifying living circumstances, and the fear that is ultimately a part of their lives after incarceration is explored through the events that take place. The faith of Corrie ten Boom that would go on to inspire others after her release is explored as she goes through horrific events and survives. As well, she tells the story of a series of miracles that helped her to live, despite the horrors that she witnessed. The story of Corrie ten Boom is defined by the belief in God that inspires her father to act in support of the Jewish members of his community that were in trouble and continues after they are captured and she experiences both loss and hope through the events that she attributes to miracles from God. The story begins in 1937 with the event of a celebration. Corrie is forty-five at the time, she and her sister having never married and living at home with their father who is a watchmaker. Corrie spends a good deal of time discussing her childhood and all the ways in which it summed up to her adult existence. Holland falls to the German invasion and her father, herself and her sister must make the choice as to whether or not to act in tandem with the resistance, or to ignore the plight of their fellow countrymen. They choose to act by hiding Jewish member of the community in a room that could be hidden. Eventually they are betrayed and incarcerated, their father, who is in his eighties, dying within ten days of having been arrested. Corrie is ill when she is arrested and is put into solitary for an unknown period of time which might have been a month or more, isolated except for the hand that gives her food everyday. She finds ways to hold onto her faith, something coming to her aide whenever she felt that she could not withstand her circumstances for any longer. She writes in regard to the ‘company’ that she found “And I was not alone much longer: into my solitary cell came a small, busy black ant” (Ten Boom, Sherrill, & Sherrill, 2009, p. 165). The ant symbolizes provision, the creature a survivor through its ability to provide for its colony, just as Corrie finds in her faith a way to provide for her survival. Corrie and Betsie, her sister, are eventually reunited as they are sent to Vught Prison and the two are eventually sent to Ravensbruck. Ravensbruck was a concentration camp which was housing anywhere from 45,000 to 60,000 female prisoners in 1944 who were mostly political prisoners who had defied the Nazis during World War II (Albert-Lake & Litoff, 2006, p. xxi). In these walls, Corrie and Betsy faced horrors of the concentration camps, Betsie finally dying from her weakened condition from heart problems that had always plagued her. Corrie records many small miracles that helped her to survive during incarceration. There was a small vitamin bottle that was sneaked in to help to keep Betsy strong and the bottle never seemed to run out of pills. They had obtained a copy of the gospels, and while religious material was routinely confiscated, theirs was never taken from them. Corrie, and until she died, Betsie, spread the word of God to all those they encountered, helping to give hope and to bolster their own faith towards survival. Survival is often defined by the ability of a person to adapt and adjust to the circumstances that they have to navigate. Corrie suggests that “reality broke through the numbness that had grown in me since the invasion” (ten Boom, Sherrill & Sherrill, 2009, p. 90). This simple remembrance suggests that aspect of living under terror, of how a person must adjust to the circumstances, or crumble under its weight. In the concentration camps, it was a far more difficult adjustment. However, Jeffery (2001) suggests that “Autonomy…implies self-mastery over events…I might feel I have lost my autonomy for the first few days, but if I will myself to master the new situation by adjusting myself to the external circumstances over which I have no control, not allowing them to weaken my perceptions of self, I am in control again” (p. 82). Corrie was able to adjust herself to her surroundings, to find a way to serve God in order to not become lost within her own misery. A man by the name of Jan Vogel betrayed Corrie and her family to the Nazis, sending them on the terrifying journey of imprisonment which cost Corrie her father and her sister. The actions of Vogel are hard to explain from outside of his experience. Collaborating in stead of resisting can seem like a poor choice, but often collaboration happens before the individual realizes they have become a part of something terrible. While the world has looked at collaborators and condemned them, it is often a process that was not intended, but that became a part of their experience. This can be compared to the ‘foot in the door phenomenon’. As people adjust to agreeing with the first level of entry, they will find themselves agreeing to deeper and deeper levels despite any moral objection they might have made about the deepest level, had they not experienced all the levels in between, compromising themselves as they give in by small increments. People prefer to be consistent, so when they find themselves agreeing to the first level, they do not want to create conflict by disagreeing with the deeper levels (Myers, 2010, p. 686). Under the pressure of the Nazi invasion, more and more was accepted with little resistance because as each level was breeched, it was more and more difficult to resist. Some people, whether by their virtue or by their own experience with foot in the door phenomenon, become resistant of the imposed oppression. The question that remains, however, is whether or not the resistance has come from belief or if it has become the result of being associated with others who have decided to resist. An example might be found through the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted in 1971 which showed that people will adapt to the roles that they are assigned (Zimbardo, 2008, p. 21). While there are always leaders that will create a belief system, it is unknown how many people would have gravitated to collaboration or resistance by virtue of belief or by virtue of being with others who pushed them to progress through levels of acceptance of behavior. In the case of the Nazi invasions, people were put under enormous pressure and would have to accept their circumstances, navigate them to the best of their ability, and make decisions based upon both their beliefs and those pressures. As an example, what if a person is known to the military officers holding the city. If those officers ask a small favor, such as to go find them some bread, as an example, one would feel compelled to comply. The next level would be if they asked if they could rest within a person’s home, to watch the neighborhood for anything that seemed dangerous as they didn’t want any trouble, then finally to report to them if the neighbors left their house during the night. Each progression comes with a decision to agree or to disagree, and since each decision progresses only slightly, it is easy to understand how one can become involved before a conscious, moral decision is made. The side of resistance can be the same. A person may be asked to hold onto a document for a day or two, then to pass a short message to another. Then a person might be asked to watch the movements of the military, and then finally asked to hide someone within their home. Group behavior suggests that not all decisions are based upon morality, and neither all decisions based upon intent to make a stand for one belief or another. Sometimes, a person becomes caught up in trying to avoid conflict and beliefs become irrelevant. Corrie, however, held onto her belief in God, her moral compass having the power to give her the hope that she desperately needed. Furthermore, her sister prophesied that Corrie would have a ministry that would spread their story and help others who were in adversity. The power of that prophesy fueled the hope for Corrie. In this same respect, it was through this suggestion that the idea was granted a ’foot in the door’, her ministry fulfilling the prophesy that had held her strong. Whether because of the suggestion or because her sister had a deathbed insight that cannot be explained other than through God, Corrie was given a path. She fulfilled the role she was assigned. Miracles often have a rational explanation. The biggest miracle for Corrie was that she was released by accident and that a week more would have found her in the gas chamber, her thoughts and memories gone from the world. However, she was released and given the chance to take a terrible experience and turn it into doing good for many others. She was fulfilling a role she had been given, but the role became her life, her life able to reflect the beliefs that she held dear. Not everyone has the chance to make the right choice or is given the role that enables noble behavior. Group behavior shows that sometimes the group pressure is stronger than personal beliefs. Being able to lead is not the only property of a persons character that makes them into a leader. The appropriate support, or group, the opportunities that are formed out of harmonious beliefs, and the miracles that support that harmony all must fall in line to give a leader the chance to make a difference. For Corrie, this opportunity was supported by her beliefs, by people who heard them, and by those who thought they had value. References Albert-Lake, V., & Litoff, J. B. (2006). An American heroine in the French Resistance: The diary and memoir of Virginia d'Albert-Lake. New York: Fordham University Press. Jeffery, P. (2001). Going against the stream: Ethical aspects of ageing and care. Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing. Myers, D. G. (2010). Psychology. New York, NY: Worth Publishers Ten Boom, C., Sherrill, E., & Sherrill, J. L. (2009). The hiding place. Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books. Zimbardo, P. G. (2008). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks. Read More