Corrie ten Boom (April 15, 1892 – April 15, 1983) was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the youngest of three sisters and one brother. Her father was a watchmaker and she was raised in the Dutch Reformed Church. She never married.

Corrie was able to rescue many Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazi SS during the Holocaust. In 1940 the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and banned her club organization. By 1942 her family had become very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees. The family's work in saving Jews was motivated by their staunch Christian beliefs. They helped Jews unconditionally—regardless of whether they converted—and even provided Kosher food and honored the Sabbath.

The Nazis arrested the entire ten Boom family in 1944; they were sent first to Dutch prisons, and finally to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where Corrie's sister Betsie died. Corrie was released only days later: the war had ended. She returned to the Netherlands to begin rehabilitation centres. She went to Germany in 1946, beginning many years of itinerant preaching in over sixty countries, a time during which she wrote many books.

Her preaching focused on the Christian Gospel, with emphasis on forgiveness. In her book Tramp for the Lord (1974), she tells the story of how, after she had been preaching in Germany in 1947, she was approached by one of the cruelest former Ravensbrück camp guards. She was naturally reluctant to forgive him, but prayed that she would be able to. She wrote that she was then able to forgive, and that