Casper ten Boom, Holland, Watchmaker

March 9. Casper ten Boom. Casper was a Dutch watch-maker. More significantly, he was a devout Christian who maintained a prayer tradition that had begun before he was born.

Casper’s parents had started assembling believers to pray for Jerusalem and for Jewish people around the world. With his father, Casper led 5,200 intercessory prayer meetings over a span of 100 years for Jerusalem and the ancient people of God. The last of those prayer meetings occurred on this date in 1944, when Casper died in a Nazi prison.

When evil descends, a man of conviction stands up.

When the Nazis occupied Holland in 1940, 84-year-old Casper lived as he always had: a life of love and faith-in-action upstairs above his watch shop. The only difference was higher stakes.

Affectionately nicknamed Haarlem’s Grand Old Man, Casper refused to leave the side of his neighbors when they were forced to take the dreaded yellow star that identified them as Jews.

“Go home!” his friends urged.

But Casper wouldn’t budge. “If it is good enough for God’s chosen people to suffer,” he said, “then it is good enough for me to suffer with them.”

When Casper returned home later that day, he handed the star to his daughter, Betsie. “Could you sew this onto my coat?”

Corrie cried, “No, Father!” In a passionate discussion, Casper’s daughters convinced him there were better ways to help the Jews. Casper lovingly placed the fabric star in the pages of his Bible.

Soon Jewish people knocked on Casper’s door. His home became a haven where Jews hid until more secure arrangements could be made through the Dutch underground.

Planning for a likely Gestapo raid, Casper installed a secret room upstairs. Building materials were smuggled in. A level stuck in a sock. Two or three bricks like loaves of bread in a basket. They called the room: Angel’s Den. On February 28, 1944, minutes before the Gestapo stamped to the third floor, six people slipped into the secret room. One group of officers splintered floorboards and searched for hollow walls, and another group beat Casper and his family and demanded information about Jewish people.

Casper tasted blood and his head throbbed as he leaned heavily upon his daughters. The Gestapo shoved them through the dark streets of Haarlem, and held them in a crowded gymnasium.

As they awaited their fate, Casper did what he did every night. He prayed and shared Scripture. He had no Bible, but in his steady, faithful voice, he recited Psalm 91.

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust” (Psalm 91:1–2 NIV).

The next morning, the Nazis told Casper could go home if he stopped sheltering Jews.

Casper stood erect, his white hair a halo. “If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door again to any man in need who knocks.”

Fury replaced compassion, and the Nazis thrust Casper—and the daughters he loved—into a concrete courtyard to await imprisonment.

As Casper was taken from her, Corrie cried to her father, “God go with you.”

“And also with you, my daughters.”

It was their last loving exchange. After nine days in Scheveningen Prison, Casper died. But the six people hidden in his home escaped. Three of them survived the war.

During the Nazi occupation of Holland, the ten Booms and their friends rescued more than 800 people—Jewish people and non-Jewish members of the Dutch Underground.

Extraordinary times demand extraordinary action, but Casper didn’t suddenly step into greatness. He had prepared long before. “The cornerstone of [her father’s] character,” wrote Corrie, “was his steady and consistent walk with the Lord, his knowledge of, and trust in, the Bible. He believed the Bible was relevant for every part of his daily life.”

When evil descends, a man of conviction stands up. Will you?

“The ten Boom Family.” Friends of Zion Museum. Accessed August 20, 2020. https://www.fozmuseum.com/ exhibits/dreamers/ten-boom/. ten Boom, Corrie. The Hiding Place. Grand Rapids: Chosen Books. 2006. Benge, Janet and Geoff. Corrie Ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels’ Den. Seattle: YWAM Publishing. 1999. Corrie ten Boom: A Faith Undefeated . Directed by Robert Fernandez. Herald Entertainment. 2013.

Story read by Daniel Carpenter Story written by Paula Moldenhauer, http://paulamoldenhauer.com/

Would You Like to Learn More About This Man?

Want to read more about Casper and the family culture he created? Check out In My Father’s House and Corrie’s Christmas Memories, by Corrie ten Boom. For a virtual tour of Beje, the ten Boom home which is now a museum, visit: http://tenboom.org.