What’s the definition of civil disobedience? According to Google, civil disobedience is “the refusal to comply with certain laws considered unjust, as a peaceful form of political protest”. In short, civil disobedience is when people do not want to obey the law. The people refuse to obey the law because it violates their personal principles in life. It is peaceful and that’s what makes it different from other revolts.

Civil disobedience is a peaceful act going against the law but it might have consequences that can lead to imprisonment and sometimes even death. It is peaceful because they don’t fight and there’s no bloodshed. Lawbreakers try to escape their punishment but Leon F. Litwack claims, “People who choose this act accept their punishment”.

Corrie Ten Boom is one of the people who practiced civil disobedience. Her family had owned a watch shop and inside they built a hiding spot so they could hide the Jews. They had an advertisement for watches but secretly it was a sign for the Jew fugitives that the Ten Boom shelter was a safe place for them. Because she was Dutch, Corrie received ration cards which were coupons to buy food. Fortunately, she knew someone who owned a ration-card office. So one night she went to him and asked for one hundred ration cards, distributing some of it to every Jew she saw. On February 28, 1944, the Nazis raided the Ten Boom house. Corrie, her sister Betsie and her father were arrested, but the Jews who were hiding were not found. They were taken to concentration camps and ten days later, Casper, her father, died. On December 28, Corrie was released on her own since her sister had died twelve days earlier.

After the war, Corrie went back to the Netherlands and set up a rehabilitation center for those who survived the concentration camps. Then she went throughout Europe and the Near East and talked about her time in the concentration camps and how God had worked in her life during her time there. She believed that God had put her there for a purpose and that purpose was that so she could share the Bible to her fellow inmates. Mike Evans claims, “Her true-life adventure in faith and courage has been read by millions in the best-selling book, The Hiding Place, [and] has been seen by millions more in the movie produced by Dr. Billy Graham”.

For a long time, the Ten Booms had a heart to reach out to the Jews and when they had the opportunity, they took it even though it was against the law; they got involved in harboring the Jews. Corrie Ten Boom willingly suffered knowing the consequences because she helped the Jews. She had gone through so much because she knew that that was God’s plan for her. What Corrie and her family did was an act of civil disobedience, and if it weren’t for her, life for the Jews and even for us wouldn’t be as it was today.