Sunday, December 29, 2013

European holiday.....Haarlem

We all travelled to Haarlem on the bus and train for the express purpose of seeing the Corrie ten Boom Museum. Liz, Lily and JJ had not been to Haarlem before, so it was a first for them as well.

It's such a busy town, with Saturday market in the town square, selling just about everything you can think of. I managed to get myself a new iPad cover, as my old one was completely falling apart.

Once we found the museum, we checked the door for the time of the English speaking tour. As it was not for an hour and a half, we wandered through the shops and the market place, TRO and myself finding that the very large Cathedral of St. Bavo was open for inspection. Of course, we had to tour it. It is enormous, dating from the late 1300's. The floor of the Bavo church consists entirely of gravestones, about 1500 altogether, the oldest dating back to the 15th century.










At 1.15, we made our way back to the lane way to wait near the door , as per instructions, for the tour of the museum to begin.
If you are not familiar with the story of Corrie ten Boom, you can go to the website and do a virtual tour of the museum yourself. Here

Our English speaking guide gave us the story of the ten Booms, a Christian family, who sheltered and hid Jewish people from the Nazis during the 2nd world war. When danger arose, they had to quickly run and shelter in a cubby hole off Corrie's bedroom. After being betrayed by a fellow Dutchman, Corrie and her sister Betsie were incarcerated in Ravensbruck concentration camp, Betsie to die shortly afterwards, but Corrie surviving.

After the war, Corrie returned to The Netherlands to set up a rehabilitation center. The refuge houses consisted of concentration camp survivors and sheltered the jobless Dutch who previously collaborated with Germans during the occupation. She returned to Germany in 1946, and traveled the world as a public speaker, appearing in over sixty countries, during which time she wrote many books.




One of her books "The Hiding Place" was made into a movie. This is the very hiding place that people sheltered in. It was accessed through a false back in the cupboard.





Aysha thought the visit was "quite good" and "interesting". She was very surprised at the size of the bedrooms. It is a very small house with a couple of very narrow, circular staircases. There were over 25 people on our tour, from seven different nationalities.

The Ollibollen stand was outside the station on our return journey, so we enjoyed one each.





Loosely translated, meaning ..oil ball....they taste like a yeast donut actually, quite delicious.

Location:Leiderdorp,The Netherlands

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous29/12/13

    So many different sights and tastes. It must be a bit warmer as I see you aren't wearing a hat . :)

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    Replies
    1. I had taken my hat off in the museum, and not put it back on while we were walking through the town. It was cold though, the night air starts coming down around 3.30.

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