The Hiding Place: Eusie Summary & Analysis

Although Peter has returned home, he’s still not safe—German soldiers have developed a practice of grabbing healthy young men in the street or even their homes and deporting them to munitions factories, which are short on labor. Nollie has created a hiding place by arranging her kitchen table over a trap door in the basement. One night, Corrie, Father and Betsie are visiting for Flip’s birthday when the children run inside, saying that soldiers are two doors away. Just as the soldiers arrive, Peter scrambles down and Corrie drapes a cloth over the table.

The soldiers storm into the house, looking around for young men and annoyed not to see any. The situation is especially tense because one of the Jews that Nollie is hiding is standing right there, dressed as a maid. The soldier asks Nollie’s young daughter where her brother is, and Corrie holds her breath, knowing that the children have been taught not to lie and can’t do so convincingly. The girl says simply that her brothers are under the table, and when the soldiers check and see no one there, she laughs and plays it off as a children’s prank. Angry to see a young girl laughing at them, the soldiers leave.

That evening, the family debates the issue of lying. Nollie says that her daughter did the right thing, but Peter and Corrie think they are being impractical and even illogical; after all, if one speaks the truth but practices a deception—like procuring fake ration cards—one is still committing a sin. Nollie quotes a psalm that seems to make a distinction between these two kinds of lying, but Corrie points out that she really did lie “with her lips” in order to keep the radio.

At the end of the night, Corrie is still confused, wondering how even God could “show truth and love at the same time in a world like this.” Suddenly, she thinks of the image of Christ stretched out on the cross.

As time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to find safe houses in the country. Corrie knows she has to start hiding people in the city, even though it’s not very safe there. Around this time, Harry and Cato come to her for help—their shop has just been confiscated, and they fear imminent deportation. Corrie is forced to send them to a safe house in the city where eighteen Jews are already living, mostly young people who are restless from confinement and make a lot of noise. Betsie, who visits often, is concerned that their carelessness endangers everyone.

That winter is very difficult. There’s little fuel, and people cut down trees along the canals to keep warm. Christoffels is found dead in his bed by his landlady, and the family gathers to bury him.

As spring slowly arrives, Cato arrives one night at the Beje. Tearfully, she tells Corrie that Harry has been arrested. The night before, a group of the young men “went crazy” and left the house. The Gestapo quickly caught them and raided the house. Cato hasn’t been arrested because she’s not Jewish, but she’s desperately worried about her husband. Every day she goes to the police station, begging to see her husband, but always in vain.

That Friday, Rolf van Vliet visits the shop again. Hurriedly, he tells Corrie that Harry will be taken to Amsterdam the next day, and Cato should come to the police station that afternoon to see him. When they arrive, Rolf brings Harry out to make hasty farewells. Harry and Cato embrace, and Harry tells Corrie that he will use whatever experience is coming next as “my witness stand for Jesus.” Corrie feels that she will never see him again.

That night the family debates taking Rolf into the operation. Corrie assigns one of the teenagers working for her as a messenger to figure out where Rolf lives. The next week, she visits him, asking if she can do anything in compensation for his kindness to Cato. Rolf says that a cleaning woman at the jail has asked for help hiding her son, in order to spare him from forced labor. Corrie tells Rolf to send her to the shop.

The next day the cleaning woman meets with Corrie at the shop, and that evening Corrie listens to her messengers’ reports and decides on a suitable hiding place for the boy. She gives the cleaning woman a banknote as a fee for the “host” and instructs her on a secret spot near the canal where her son must meet the messenger who will transport him to his new home. Full of gratitude, the woman promises that someday she will repay them for this.

In this fashion, Corrie continues her work, solving each problem as it comes up. Pickwick sends someone to install a clandestine telephone in the house, which is incredibly useful—by now the Beje is headquarters to an operation of eighty people, but they have to limit traffic in and out of the house. Corrie constantly worries whether her neighbors will grow suspicious of the frequent visitors or hear the telephone ring.

One June night, Corrie takes in a young Jewish woman and her newborn baby—an especially dangerous fugitive, as it’s impossible to control the baby’s crying. The next morning, a clergyman and friend of the family visits the shop by chance and Corrie thinks she’s found her solution; she knows he lives in a secluded home outside the city. Quietly, she asks if he’d be willing to shelter a Jewish mother and baby. However, the clergyman becomes pale and fearful. He chides Corrie for endangering her father and sister by becoming involved with “this undercover business.”

Hoping to change his mind, Corrie runs upstairs and fetches the tiny baby, returning him and placing him in the clergyman’s arms. For a minute, the man stares down at the baby’s tiny face, but he ultimately refuses, unwilling to risk his life.

Father quietly appears in the doorway and takes the baby in his own arms. He tells the clergyman that dying for this child would be “the greatest honor that could come to my family.” The clergyman leaves quickly.

Without the clergyman’s help, Corrie has to accept a flawed solution, hiding the woman in a safe house that has already been raided by the Gestapo. A few weeks later, Corrie finds out that the farm has been raided again. In her anguish and hysteria, the mother began shrieking, and she and her baby were both taken.

In order to communicate by phone, Corrie and her workers develop a secret code, referring to fugitives as watches. For example, when she tells someone that “I have a watch here with a face that’s causing difficulty,” she means that she has a fugitive with stereotypically Semitic features, who needs to be placed in an especially secure hiding place.

One day, Corrie gets a call just like this, and tells the caller to “send the watch over.” As she is setting out dinner an obviously Jewish man arrives, introduces himself courteously as Meyer Mossel, and asks permission to smoke his pipe. Corrie takes to him instantly.

Corrie brings Meyer upstairs, where he immediately bonds with Father, whom he jokingly calls “one of the Patriarchs” for his long white beard. Meyer and Father joke about the Psalms, which they both know thoroughly. After dinner, Father passes the Bible across the table to the new guest and asks if he will deliver the nightly reading. As it turns out, Meyer was once a cantor in an Amsterdam synagogue, and he has a beautiful and haunting voice.

Corrie realizes that Meyer will probably have to stay at the Beje permanently, as they’re unlikely to find someone else willing to hide him She decides to give him a Christian name, settling on Eusebius (Eusie for short), after the fourth-century church father, and Smit—a nod to the alias adopted by all members of the underground.

A more practical concern is Eusebius’s devotion to kosher dietary rules, which prohibit him from eating pork. Meat is so rare by now that Betsie has to take what she can get for her ration coupons, and one day she firmly informs him that he must eat pork casserole to keep his strength up. Eusie concedes, saying that there must be an exception in the Talmud for these sorts of situations—and that he’ll look for it after dinner.

After Eusie’s arrival, the family starts acquiring more permanent residents. The current apprentice, Jop, takes up residence as he risks being deported for forced labor every time he travels to and from work. Two young Jewish men—Henk, a lawyer, and Leendert, a schoolteacher—arrive as well.

Leendert makes an especially important contribution by building an electric warning system, which Pickwick has encouraged Corrie to acquire—something that will alert the whole household in the event of an unfriendly visitor and allow everyone to reach the secret room in time. Leendert installs a buzzer on the stairs and buttons to sound it at every window looking over the street, and in the workbenches in the shop.

To be more prepared, Corrie starts running drills to prepare the household, to see how quickly everyone can get to the secret room without prior notice. The fugitives have to run quickly up to the secret room, while the ten Booms have to conceal any traces of their presence, from stray garments to warm mattresses. At lunch, they have a trial run. It’s loud and chaotic, but the fugitives reach the secret room in four minutes while Betsie and Corrie rearrange the table to make it seem as though only three people are eating. Still, they leave tell-tale cigar ashes and other signs of additional occupants around the house.

By the fifth drill, they’ve reduced their time to two minutes. Meanwhile, Corrie, Toos, and Father develop stalling techniques they can use if the Gestapo come into the shop.

Three more fugitives arrive: Thea Dacosta, Mary Monsanto, and Mary Itallie. Mary, an elderly lady, poses an additional security problem. It’s difficult for her to reach the secret room quickly and she wheezes loudly from her asthma. Corrie calls a meeting to address this issue. Eusie emphatically voices his support for Mary to stay, and Henk suggests a vote. People begin raising their hands in favor, but Mary insists on a secret ballot, so everyone can feel free to voice their true thoughts. When Corrie counts the nine ballots, everyone has voted for Mary to stay.

The nine people settle into their routine as a household—a fairly happy one, thanks to Betsie. She organizes activities to alleviate the tedium of confinement, and the group enjoys impromptu concerts, theater readings, Hebrew lessons from Meyer and Italian from Meta. Because electricity is so limited, in the evenings one person pedals on Corrie’s bicycle to power up the headlight while another uses the light to read aloud history books, novels, and plays.