Casper ten Boom

Casper ten Boom (18 May 1859 – 9 March 1944) was a Dutch Christian who helped many Jews and resisters escape Nazi Germany during the Holocaust of World War II. He is the father of Betsie and Corrie ten Boom, who also aided the Jews and were sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where Betsie died. Casper died 9 March 1944 in The Hague, after nine days of imprisonment in the Scheveningen Prison. In 2008, he was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Background Casper was born in Haarlem as the son of Willem ten Boom, who had a watch shop. When Ten Boom was 18, he started a jewelry store in Amsterdam. He had grown up in a family that belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church and had strong faith. While living in Amsterdam, he started a work among the poor people, Tot Heil des Volks (For the Salvation of the People). He later returned to Haarlem to live. Like his father, he lived and worked in the same building, with the shop on the ground floor and living quarters on the two floors above. Willem married Tine van Veen and had four children. Nollie married Flip van Woerden and had six children.

Wartime activities

According to The Hiding Place, the family, in 1918, took in the first of many foster children whom they would shelter over the years. Corrie ran special church services for disabled children for 20 years. The Dutch Reformed Church "protested Nazi persecution of Jews as an injustice to fellow human beings and an affront to divine authority." His son Willem, a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, also worked in a nondenominational nursing home. During the occupation, he sheltered many Jews there to save them from the Nazis. On 9 March, Casper died at the Hague Municipal Hospital, at the age of 84, after nine days in Scheveningen prison. Like all who died there he was buried in the dunes of Scheveningen. After the war he was reburied at the National Cemetery of Honours in Loenen.

His daughter Betsie died at Ravensbrück in December 1944. Willem contracted spinal tuberculosis while he was imprisoned for his resistance work. Although he was released, he died of tuberculosis shortly after the war. Willem's son Christiaan (commonly known as Kik), 24, was sent to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp for his work in the underground and died there during the war. Corrie was finally released from Ravensbruck several weeks after Betsie's death.

Honours In 2008, he was honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

The Ten Boom Museum in Haarlem, situated in their former house, honors all the family.