The Hiding Place

John and Elizabeth are the co-authors of The Hiding Place. They possess significant experience assisting Christian ministry leaders with religious memoirs. Both John and Elizabeth served as freelance writers early in their careers. Their first major book was The Cross and the Switchblade, a collaboration with American pastor David Wilkerson that tells the story of his ministry to street gangs in Brooklyn, New York. The Cross and the Switchblade went on to sell more than 15 million copies. Their second major book, God’s Smuggler, was also a collaboration with a ministry leader, telling the story of a Dutch missionary named Andrew van der Bijl, popularly known as “Brother Andrew” and later the founder of Open Doors, which helps persecuted Christians.

John and Elizabeth’s background as American writers enabled them to assist Corrie, who was a non-native English speaker.

Of all the characters in The Hiding Place, Corrie is most attached to her sister Betsie. Though seven years apart, they share a strong connection, partly because each is unmarried and lives in the family home. They become partners in their work for the Dutch resistance, using their house to provide refuge to Jewish individuals in hiding. Both are imprisoned at Scheveningen, Vught, and Ravensbruck.

Betsie has pernicious anemia, which makes her incarceration even more dangerous and ultimately results in death. However, her physical limitations do not define her in the story. Instead, the book focuses on her tremendous faith, wisdom, and compassion. She expresses deep concern for the moral and spiritual state of the German oppressors, seeing them as individuals to be pitied and prayed for. Her vision of a ministry of rehabilitation eventually becomes a reality in the postwar years, touching many lives.