Holocaust Remembrance

Christianity and the Holocaust: Why Secular History Needs More Respect from Christ-Followers

Arbeit Macht Frei: Work Sets One Free

Holocaust Remembrance Day is on Thursday of this week. It is amazing to me the people that live among us that still don’t think the Holocaust was real. There will always be people that try to avoid the reality of our history for a variety of reasons. The Holocaust was not only very real, I was able to walk through a concentration camp north of Prague in the Czech Republic. TEREZIN was a concentration during the World War II. It was originally a holiday resort reserved for Czech nobility. Terezín is contained within the walls of the famed fortress Theresienstadt, which was created by Emperor Joseph II of Austria in the late 18th century and named in honor of his mother, Empress Maria Theresa. (terezin.org) When I walked through the camp, my skin crawled at the sites, the sounds, the stories. I walked through a dark, shallow and narrow tunnel that he prisoners took when they were being taken for execution. I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe, the evil that still was embedded in the walls of this place. I remember my stomach dropping at the realization of how many people knew at the end of this tunnel, a tunnel not even tall enough or wide enough to be comfortable standing in, their time was up. I began to cry for them. I began to cry because the reminder of what Jesus went through during his time of persecution was similar. I left the camp and didn’t talk to anyone for a while. I couldn’t. What do you say after and experience like that?

Something that we need to know and understand when it comes to the Nazi reign in Germany is the fact that the vast majority of Germans at the time were part of a Christian Church. “The German Evangelical Church (the largest Protestant church) and the Roman Catholic church were pillars of German society and played an important role in shaping people’s attitudes.”(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) In fact, the Pro-Nazi movement was shaped within the German Evangelical Church. There was the need to possess power and be on top as a group of people as a religion that they chose to take it upon themselves to “racially cleanse” society by attacking the Jews. I don’t understand how that statement can be heard or read and not strike a chord spiritually. Our whole ancestral being stems from Judaism. Jesus himself was not a Christian, that is a false narrative taught by many. Jesus was a Jew, born and raised. He was a teacher in the Synagogue. He quoted the Torah in much of his teachings an explained the importance of living what was spoken. He started a movement within Judaism, later referred to as the Christ Movement within Judaism by those that carried the torch after his death and resurrection.

“Both the Confessing and the “German Christian” movements remained part of the German Evangelical Church. The Confessing Church movement condemned Nazified theology and the attempt to nationalize the church, but it limited its protest to maintaining the theological integrity and autonomy of the Protestant churches—not protesting the legitimacy of the Nazi state itself.”(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) How often do we still see this happening today ?How many times have we seen this happen over history? Jews were constantly being ran out of communities by pagan groups that wanted to have power and authority over more regions. Exiles have been part of our history since the beginning of time. In fact, looking at Ezra, the Jews returned from the Babylonian Exile with the intent and instruction to restore the temple that was taken from then by Nebuchadnezzar. We as followers of Christ have learned through our Holy Teachings that our ancestors were mistreated and persecuted for their beliefs and practices. In the 1930’s, our own people stood by and allowed it to happen. Jews and Christ-followers worship the same God. They are considered family in my book. Just because they do not recognize Jesus and the Messiah, Son of God, doesn’t change our relational aspects within our belief system. When Jews were being persecuted during WWII, there were some individuals and Christian networks that tried to rescue and aid Jews. The unfortunate part is the majority of Christian networks and individuals did not.

The term antisemitism was coined only in the nineteenth century, but anti-Jewish hatred and Judeophobia (fear of Jews) date back to ancient times and have a variety of causes. How often in today’s culture do people act in hatred and anger towards those that they fear. How often do we allow fear to guide our every day life? Imagine if Jesus would have done that? Imagine if Jesus would have started to act, teach, live out of the fear he had knowing the Sanhedrin were out to get him. Imagine how our Holy Teachings would look and read if Jesus and our ancestors acted solely out of fear without any signs of love, peace, or hope.

Persecution of the Jews is nothing new, yet we manage to constantly ignore it as if it doesn’t affect us. If as a Christ-follower you believe in our Holy Teachings dating all the way back to the beginning as outlines in Genesis, then I will be the one to break it to you: You Are Part Jewish! Guess what, we all have Judaic ancestry. Judaism is in us as part of our religious understanding. Our ancestors in the Old Testament went through persecution and fear of their entire being at the hands of Romans and other Pagan officials. In 63 B.C., the Romans conquered Judea, which was the land of the Jews. Because the Jews refused to worship and recognize the Roman gods, the hatred and distaste for the Jewish Nation became prominent. Even with this, the Romans gave the Jews some freedom in their religion because they helped Julius Caesar win an important battle in years prior. This didn’t change their persecution and suspicion of the community over many occurrences. One of the most serious conflicts between Rome and the Jews began in Judea in A.D. 66 when Nero was emperor. A Roman governor of Judea decided to take money from the treasury of the Great Temple. The Great Temple of Jerusalem consisted of two temples that were the center of worship and national identity in ancient Israel. The Western Wall, in the Old City of Jerusalem, all that remains of the retaining wall surrounding the Temple Mount. He claimed he was collecting taxes owed the emperor which caused a riot to occur. The Roman soldiers had a ruthless way of suppressing those riots.

The hatred of Jews continued over centuries and was seen in the way the Nazi Regime managed to put together a range of Anti-Jew polices and measures. Within those measures and polices they implemented the Nuremberg Race Laws, among others, that passed in Nazi Germany in September 1935. They are the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. These laws personified many of the racial theories supporting Nazi ideology. They would provide the legal framework for the methodical persecution of Jews in Germany. The regime made it so people ended up boycotting or destroying Jewish-ran or owned business by marking them with the Star of David or other obligatory markings as well and joined in acts of public humiliation. Not only was Hitler and his regime after them to emigrate, they were not shy in the violence they used to force this into being. The most noted and recognized, yet widely debated or ignored, was the implementation of Concentration Camps. “The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.” (Holocaust Encyclopedia) The concentration camps and other established sites but the Regime had different purposes. Some of the sites and purposes were:

Concentration camps: For the detention of civilians seen as real or perceived “enemies of the Reich.”

Forced-labor camps: In forced-labor camps, the Nazi regime brutally exploited the labor of prisoners for economic gain and to meet labor shortages. Prisoners lacked proper equipment, clothing, nourishment, or rest.

Transit camps: Transit camps functioned as temporary holding facilities for Jews awaiting deportation. These camps were usually the last stop before deportations to a killing center.

Prisoner-of-war camps: For Allied prisoners of war, including Poles and Soviet soldiers.

Killing centers: Established primarily or exclusively for the assembly-line style murder of large numbers of people immediately upon arrival to the site. There were 5 killing centers for the murder primarily of Jews. The term is also used to describe “euthanasia” sites for the murder of disabled patients.

How is it, that although we can read about so many different historical persecution moments of a variety of peoples and communities, do we still have the audacity to do it to one another today? By no means am I saying we are suffering today the way the Jews did during the holocaust. I am saying that persecution is persecution, no matter the circumstance. Persecution at the hands of ego, pride, control, power, and authority is never God-ordained. Reading the stories of survivors of the Holocaust, and what their faith did for them, can inspire those of any walk of life. Rachel Gottlieb is a survivor of the holocaust and made a statement that her faith in God kept her from death. Gottlieb was with her mother at Auschwitz in line for the crematorium. She looked across the yard and realized there was a large group of girls in their 20’s that were not with their mothers. She and her friend ran toward that group, surprisingly, no one stopped them. Her mother was taken into the crematorium and she wept as the smoke became visible, realizing her mother was no long alive. She stayed at the camp for several months before being taken to Leipzig, where she was supposed to participate in a death march. “Prisoners were forced to march for hundreds of miles in the cold with no food, water or sleep, and those who could not continue were shot. After walking for hours, they were finally allowed to sit in the street to rest. Gottlieb and a friend, Yoli, went to opposite sides of the street to gather potatoes and vegetables. “All of a sudden, I hear a shot,” Gottlieb recalled. A girl she knew was screaming at her to run away. “Don’t you see?'' the girl asked. “They shot Yoli.” When Gottlieb turned her head, she saw only the barrel of a rifle aimed at her face. But the German soldier behind the rifle didn’t shoot. “God took care of me,” Gottlieb explained.” With everything she faced, the losses she suffered, the horror she lived through, she never lost her faith.

Why is it that we can look at our past and manage to put blinders on to the ways we keeps making the same mistakes? Maybe the better question is How can we keep doing this? I have heard many folks make mention to the world persecutes Christ-followers and we will be obsolete in years ahead; we will be back to worshipping in secret; the world tries to silence us. Maybe this is true, after all, anything is possible. My question would be this: Why are we only concerned about a community of people when it affects us personally. Where were the High Officials to take a stand for our ancestors? During the Nazi reign, how were the Christian churches able to back the actions of those who feared Jews without cause by joining in the goal for racially cleansing the communities of Jews, their own brothers and sisters in the eyes of God? Today, we still see persecution among us. Different communities of our faith are targeted with violence at the hands of those who look at them as parasites needing to be extinguished.

Society is so ignorant, in the broadest aspect, that ways that are used to serve as reminders of past missteps and choices such as statues, monuments, etc., are being taken down and protested because of “what they stand for and the message they promote.” What would happen if we got out of our own way and opened our ears, minds and hearts? What if society would stop with the cancel culture of anything that isn’t liked becomes offensive and needs to be destroyed? Do we seriously not see that human beings are the problem here? Take some time to go back and look at the ways that we have risen our noses to history that is uncomfortable because it is easier than realizing we are currently no better than folks from the past.

Survivors of different types of persecution walk among us, from racial injustice, religious genocide, cultural impropriety, etc. Jesus was beaten half-to death (technically to death to anyone not divine, he shouldn’t have survived the flogging) and was hung on a cross at the hands of his own people. Christ-followers put to death millions of Jews, our own people by all technicality, yet there are many among us that don’t believe the horror that took place is real. We have many a “Doubting Thomas’” among us, those that because they didn’t see it or experience it, will not believe what is told to them by others. Unlike Thomas, who later understood he needed to change his perspective, these same folks hold on to their belief it didn’t happen.

The universal church needs to be the first ones to hold those that bravely fought to stay alive up and stand with them. We need to remember those lives taken at the hands of greedy people that wanted things their own way, and not Yahweh. Jesus came to give us new life through the grace of the cross, something that is often taken for granted. Grace doesn’t mean we can be ignorant to what is around us because we are saved by the cross so we can do what we want. Grace means humility in recognizing wrong doing, even at a time we were part of. Without humility, we risk being the reason something happens again.