Holland: The Original Haarlem

Robert gets the EASY posts….I could write about tulips too, you know? Short and to the point.

Now I get to tell you about a very cool place that we visited after Kuekenhof Gardens. About 20 minutes away from the gardens, the town of Haarlem is located. The main reason why we wanted to go to Haarlem is because that is where Corrie Ten Boom’s house is found.

If you are not familiar with who Corrie Ten Boom was, you should read a book by her The Hiding Place. She was one of the WWII survivors, who, along with her father and sister, helped many Dutch Jews hiding from the Nazis. So if you know Anne Frank, this is the story of a woman who was hiding people like Anne Frank’s family.

To learn more about Corrie Ten Boom’s story, we wanted to take a tour of her house, which is offered every hour for English speakers, lasting about an hour and is free. We showed up ten minutes before the next tour started, but were not sure if we’d be able to get in, as the max amount of people allowed was twenty five. Only because the tour guide (who was an ancient little lady born before WWII) did not count children in our group, we were able to get in.

The house is the actual house were Ten Boom family lived. It was an amazing experience to sit in their living room and listen to the guide tell us Corrie’s story. In short, what is fascinating about this woman is that despite all the misery and humiliation that she had to suffer in prison, she never lost faith in God. In her book, she describes some humbling experiences of hope and despair, peace and anger; she writes about forgiving your enemies and how difficult it was for her, but how wonderful it was to let go. After the war, she set up a rehabilitation center for those Jews coming back from concentration camps and even those Dutch people who collaborated with the Germans during the war and then ended up jobless. The feelings about the war were still too raw in Europe in 1940s, so she travelled to the US, and later on to sixty more countries to tell her story.  Many people who heard her speak were inspired by her faith and conviction.

Although I was the only one in our family who had read “The Hiding Place”, the tour was interesting to all of us. The children behaved really well through the whole tour, listening very attentively to the story.

We were able to see the actual room where Jews were hidden in the Ten Booms’ house. It’s crazy to think that six people had to fit in there (and somehow sleep)!

That was the door that they used to get in and out of the hiding place.

When the Nazis came to imprison Corrie Ten Boom, the Jews that were hiding in the house at that time were not found. It was a miracle! But you will just have to read the book to get more details

At the end of the tour, we had a chance to go up to the roof of the house and see Haarlem from the top. Pretty awesome!

The house was also full of very informative pictures and displays, such as this. This is the yellow star that the Jews had to wear on their clothes to identify them as Jews.

One of the last pictures you see at the house is a a framed embroidery that is hanging with its messy side for people to view. If you turn it over you see an embroidered picture of a crown.  Corrie Ten Boom used it to illustrate the fact that very often we don’t know why some things happen to us in life—the good and the bad, but that God knows and he has a plan.

"Although the threads of my life have often seemed knotted, I know, by faith, that on the other side of the embroidery there is a crown.."

Corrie Ten Boom

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And now on to a lighter part of the post. Haarlem is the place where I was determined to try traditional Dutch pickled herring. We found a street vendor of all things pickled, and got the most basic herring with pickles.

Everyone had a try! Alex, Katya and Robert were not fans at all.

But guess who couldn’t get enough?? This dude! He ate most of it.

I liked it a lot as well, it actually reminding me of the kind of herring we have in Ukraine, so it was a taste I am used to. Next time we’ll have to buy more.

Of course, gelato tasted heavenly after some pickled herring. Treats are a part of visiting places, right?

We also got one large serving of Dutch fries with Hollandaise mayo (that were really-really good), but not pictured here. This is the picture that Robert took at one of the stalls because it has his mom’s last name on it. Holtkamp could be Dutch after all, who knows? haha.

That evening, we got home right in time for us to hang out with our friends at the farm and then go out to eat for some more yummy Pannekoek (pancakes). That is the end of our second day in Holland.

Cheers, Lyana.