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Israel Honours Dutch Christians Who Helped Save 800 Jews

Friday, 25 April 2008

 

Israel presented one of its highest honours to the Netherlands’ ten Boom family with a certificate posthumously honouring two of its members for helping save nearly 800 Jews during the holocaust.

Harry Kney-Tal, Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, presented the Righteous Among the Nations award in remembrance of Casper ten Boom and his daughter, Elisabeth (Betsy) ten Boom, for their “wartime heroism,” during a solemn ceremony at Haarlem, Netherlands, on Wednesday, April 16. Both died during World War II.

The award was bestowed by Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, Yad Vashem, to non-Jews who saved the lives of Jewish people during World War II. During the event speakers recalled that as devout Christians, the ten Boom family participated in the resistance against the Nazis and willingly sheltered those seeking refuge, both Jews and non-Jews.

Following the war, Betsy’s sister, Corrie ten Boom, began worldwide evangelistic work which took her to more than 60 countries in 33 years. She was the first ten Boom to be honoured by Yad Vashem and lived until 1983 when she died at the age of 91.

The heritage of the ten Boom family is preserved at the Corrie ten Boom Museum in Haarlem. Her book, The Hiding Place (1971), was made into a film by World Wide Pictures in 1975.

Sources: BosNewsLife, Evangelical News, Christian Newswire