Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Cross

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Friday, April 25, 2014

                                         As it is written:

                               "There is no one righteous, not even one;
                               there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
                               All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no
                               one who does good, not even one."
                              "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit."
                              "The poison of vipers is on their lips."
                              "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."
                              "Their feet are swift to shed blood;
                               ruin and misery mark their ways,
                               and the way of peace they do not know."
                              "There is no fear of God before their eyes."       Romans 3:10-18 (NIV)  

                              “and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all’   Isaiah 53:6 (NIV)

 

My guess is that very, very few of people believe that Romans 3:10-18 is actually true about themselves.  As a result very few people understand how amazing the Grace of Isaiah 53:6 is.   I also suspect that anyone who reads the story of Noah thinks not of the horror of their own sin, but instead look to indict God.    

Today is Holocaust remembrance day.   I think every Christian should visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.  As you take the tour think about yourself.  If you conclude that, given different circumstances, you, too, could have been among the German perpetrators carrying out the same atrocities, then you will have come to crucial truth about yourself.   My guess is that almost no one gets there.   We humans have a capacity for horrific brutalities that far exceed the animal kingdom, but we in the comfort and peace of our suburbs think we are above that.   We aren’t.  How do we suppress this truth about ourselves?  We blame.  It’s them!  How could they?  I would never do such a thing!  How awful!   In such thoughts we have deceived ourselves, diminished the Grace of the cross, and instead view ourselves as entitled to God’s love.    

The following article from USA Today is by  a 16 year old Jewish girl in a German high school writing about how her class observes Holocaust remembrance day 2014. Perhaps you’ll be horrified at what you read.  If so, if you are reflective, perhaps you will be able to see something of yourself in her classmates and in the school officials whose curriculum reduces the Holocaust to little more than a mention.    Jeff  

STUTTGART, GERMANY

"Because the Nazis were cooler than the Jews." I hadn't caught the question, but the answer was the latest in a succession of jokes about the Holocaust a month ago in my ninth-grade history class in Germany. The boys laughed uncontrollably, ignoring our teacher's attempts to stop them, while looking at pictures of starving concentration camp victims.

A few days later, things got worse. Our class visited Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp. I was with some girls who congregated next to the barracks, where the prisoners once lay piled on top of each other. Nearby was a large black sculpture of men ensnared in barbed wire. One girl cracked a joke, and everyone laughed. I didn't see the humor, only the ghosts.

Holocaust Remembrance Day is Sunday. Many U.S. schools will observe the day on Monday, but not my German school. What I heard from my German classmates that day makes me think that maybe we should.
Am I overreacting? Is it because I am American — and a Jew? As the daughter of a Marine officer, I've had the opportunity to live in different parts of the U.S. and the world. In each setting, I've learned to live among different peoples and cultures, forcing me to view life from different perspectives.

So why does it matter to me that my class take the Holocaust seriously? There are two lessons we can learn from the Holocaust. First, we can learn the past: The dates, the names. All the things my class learned in school. The second lesson is about the present. About human nature. About ourselves. The lesson my classmates missed. As a Jew, I couldn't miss the lesson. My relatives are living history.

But my classmates' families really don't talk about the Holocaust. Perhaps it is too uncomfortable a topic. Nor is it usually a topic in school. In my school, the Holocaust is not even mentioned until the ninth grade. And when we do study World War II, the systematic genocide of Jews is barely mentioned.

I do think that German students should take the Holocaust as seriously as other students. These horrors are a big part of their history, and something that continues to affect how some Germans see their country today.

When my classmates laughed at Dachau, they weren't being monsters. My class acted no differently than my class in South Carolina, where slavery was justified because "times were different." In both these situations, my classes covered up these tragedies of the past and chose to ignore the lesson taught by history: that if allowed to go too far, humans can do terrible things.

The best way to make sure something like the Holocaust is never repeated is not to shield children from what happened, but teach them the moral lessons about people's capacity for evil.
For the future.
Sophie Roth-Douquet is 16 years old, and after three years in Germany, she will return to the U.S. with her family this year.  

“Lord, I am thinking about the song, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”.   My answer is yes, a resounding “yes!”   And I shudder.   I am among the crucifiers.   But incredibly, amazingly, beyond all human capacity to comprehend,  you count me also among the forgiven, included, loved, and blessed in your Kingdom.   How can this be?  Yet it is so.  My gratitude goes deeper than language can express, Lord.  Amen”

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