Corrie ten Boom and the Secret Room That Saved Hundreds During the Holocaust
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Corrie ten Boom and her family turned their watchmaker’s home into a refuge for Jews facing deportation and death. Working with the Dutch underground, they built a hidden room behind a false wall, where hundreds found shelter from the Gestapo. Their courage came at a terrible cost. Corrie and her sister Betsie were arrested and sent to prison and then to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. In this powerful firsthand account, Corrie tells how faith sustained her through betrayal, imprisonment, and unimaginable suffering — and how light endured in one of history’s darkest chapters. This is the true story behind The Hiding Place.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:14.1 | And we continue with our American stories, |
| 0:17.4 | and you are about to hear the story of how one woman shined one of the clearest |
| 0:22.8 | lights on one of the darkest moments in world history. All in all, it's estimated that around |
| 0:28.5 | 800 Jews were saved by Corey Tembom, her sister Betsy, and the rest of her family's |
| 0:35.5 | efforts. After Holland surrendered to the Nazis, they hid |
| 0:39.2 | Jews in a secret room in their home or Baye-Aye in Harlem, Netherlands, near Amsterdam. We'd like |
| 0:48.0 | to thank Vision Video for contributing the footage for this story. So without any further ado, |
| 0:54.1 | here's Corey Ten Boom. |
| 0:57.9 | A shadow fell across us in 1940. |
| 1:03.8 | But it rested lightly. |
| 1:07.6 | Nobody dreamed that this tiny cloud would grow |
| 1:10.8 | until it blocked out the sky. |
| 1:13.6 | And nobody dreamed that in this darkness each of us would be called to play a role, |
| 1:20.6 | even the funny old bayon with its unmatched floor levels and ancient angles. |
| 1:28.3 | Life was very changed when the war arrived. |
| 1:37.3 | I will never forget that through these streets, |
| 1:43.3 | and I saw tanks and it was a real performance, |
| 1:47.0 | this big, huge army going through the streets to make impression on us. |
| 1:53.0 | And I can still remember these boots marching over the streets. Tom, Tom, Tom. |
| 2:05.6 | It was strange when the German uniforms were seen. |
... |
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