by Marcel Rebiai

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In May Marcel Rebiai and a group of Jewish congregational leaders visited the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. Within two years, 1,75 million Jews were murdered in this place of unimaginable horror. But Auschwitz is more than one of the darkest chapters in the history of mankind. What happened here 60 years ago still raises existential questions, which we as Christians can no longer afford to avoid or suppress.

On entering the gigantic extermination camp of Auschwitz you are confronted with an unimaginable mechanism of cruelty, humiliation, degradation, torture and death. One is inevitably confronted with terrible questions. How is such a thing possible? How could man become a demon toward man? How can people go as far as abusing children for medical experiments; exposing them to unspeakable pain and mental torture, only to destroy them afterwards? How is it possible that educated, cultured men, themselves fathers of families, simultaneously embody evil?

Only a German problem?

In these rooms of horror I realised how difficult it is to allow one’s heart to be touched by the reality of evil which is so blatant in Auschwitz. I began to understand that neo-Nazis, right wing extremists, and anti-Semites are not the only deniers of Holocaust. There is also a form of Holocaust denial among Jews and Christians. Not that the fact of the Holocaust is denied – but one refuses to deal with the pain and the reality of the unfathomable evil expressed here and to ask oneself the reason for it.

Dealing with the question of how such a monstrous degree of evil was possible in the Nazi Holocaust, one can of course ask whether it was simply a German phenomenon. This is a logical question. But it is one which, as we shall see, must be answered with an unequivocal No.

Shortly before my trip to Auschwitz I read an article in "Le Monde” which included excerpts from a newly released biography of a French general. He described with repulsive objectivity how during the French-Algerian war he tortured and killed hundreds of people with no feelings of either compassion or hatred. He regretted only that many died without divulging the desired information. He simply did his job, which consisted of torturing and killing. This was a Frenchman, not a German...

We remember the genocide at the beginning of the 20th century in which the Turks murdered 1,5 million Armenians. In the 70’s, more than a million people were murdered in Cambodia under Pol Pot. In the Soviet Gulag millions likewise lost their lives. This was followed in the 90’s by the massacres in Ruanda and Burundi, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo. In the 20th century millions of people were humiliated, tortured, and in the end put to death.

Silence is also guilt

What we find concentrated in Auschwitz is a universal pattern which repeatedly surfaces all over the world, throughout history. It is very tempting to reduce this pattern to individual types of people or certain races. For example, one could object that Switzerland had nothing to do with concentration and extermination camps. But it has beem proven that the Swiss government and part of the population knew of the deportations and murder of Jews. This murder was not opposed, and that amounts to approval of Nazi behaviour. The borders were closed to Jewish refugees and thousands were thus forced to their death. For example, the grandparents of a close friend of mine were sent back at the Swiss-French border. They were immediately arrested by the Germans and perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

We must state unambiguously that all those Swiss who knew of the Nazi crimes and nevertheless turned people back were no less a part of the horrors which took place. Through their silence they are just as guilty as those who were the direct instruments of evil. And here we have the same question: Why? How is this possible in a civilized society, which could have chosen to learn differently from history?

Western nations, including believers, should have become sensitised by the 2000-year history of persecution of the Jews. It cannot be said that they were taken by surprise by the negative way Jews began to be treated in Germany. Anti-Semitic tendencies had become increasingly manifest, without being dealt with. We must be cautious about saying that something like the Holocaust could never happen again. For it is exactly the Holocaust which testifies to the fact that man does not learn from history, even from Jewish history. Man does not learn from the knowledge of what has happened, not even from his own experience. He learns only when he consciously deals with the root and cause and becomes aware of his own susceptibility to evil. We must learn to understand in depth how evil could and can still become so prevalent.

There is no such thing as a good person

During our visit to the extermination camp in Auschwitz God reminded me of the third chapter of Romans. I read what Paul wrote about Jews and heathen, "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” (Rom. 3:10-18).

This is exactly how we picture an SS officer, a person ruled by evil. But this description was not written about the Nazis. It applies without exception to every human being. If we believed these words in the depths of our hearts they would cause us an overwhelming shock.
We are easily tempted to reduce the reality of evil to people in whom this evil is supremely manifest: Hitler and his accomplices; plus a few individuals whose beings were totally saturated by evil, who set Nazi Germany’s death machinery in motion. The others, who blindly carried out these orders or who were silent, we try to excuse to some extent. But God’s word tells us that evil is in the heart of every person. "Every inclination of man’s heart is evil from childhood” (Gen. 8:21).

Because evil hates God it wants to rule over fallen creation, destroying everything in it which reminds us of God and bears His image. Evil wants to transform man who was created in God’s image into its own image. In other words, man makes himself the centre and the standard of all things. Pride and arrogance, nourished by deep inferiority feelings, become the source of contempt, violence, terror, mercilessness, and cruelty. By determining death and destruction, man thinks he can control life. That is the nature of evil.

Auschwitz demonstrates in concentrated form the fact that evil seeks to destroy life. During World War II millions of people were murdered in the extermination camps by men without inner involvement and without feelings, except for the satisfaction of exercising power. This exposes the true nature of evil: killing people without compassion and without hatred, with an uninvolved heart. It is almost inconceivable that concentration camp commanders were loving family fathers, tending their homes and gardens, enjoying beautiful music, interested in theatre and art – and simultaneously destroying life in an absolutely evil and merciless way.

This fact demonstrates the extent to which evil can take over a person who is not living under God’s control. Auschwitz is obvious proof that there is no such thing as a good person. The cultivated, educated person is not the good person, as we often persuade ourselves. Nor does western civilisation express the reality of goodness in man.

A disastrous error

We must be sober and aware of the power of evil and its grip on the human heart, so that we can warn those around us. Above all we must ask how we can overcome evil. Because evil is a reality in each one of us. The darkness, the cruelty, the absolute malevolence of a Holocaust can be repeated at any time. It is a disastrous error to believe that the Holocaust is a thing of the past for Germany, for Switzerland, and other directly or indirectly involved nations; to think that we should finally put it behind us because it obviously cannot be repeated. Evil is a reality of the human heart and will keep taking over a person who does not actively resist it.

Evil comes violently

Because evil comes in the form of violence it can enter people who fear for their own lives. Its demands are clear. If we do not submit and comply we will lose our lives. Hundred of thousands in Nazi Germany and surrounding countries were silent or complied, even though they sensed that what was going on was not right. Satan knows that a person will do anything to save his own life and the lives of his loved ones. If the pressure is great enough and a person fears for his life, he will submit. Sometimes even anxiety over one’s material existence is sufficient to make a person submit to the dictate of violence. How else can it be explained that in Germany so many educated people, who were surely not without a conscience, could go as far as to torture, murder, and destroy others?

Revelation 12:11 shows how the enemy can be overcome, namely by those who do not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

As long as we are fighting for our lives we are an easy prey for evil, no matter what our spiritual knowledge, experiences, or gifts. Fear for one’s life begins with little things. We’re afraid to lose face. We’re afraid of ridicule. We’re afraid of being excluded because we’re considered narrow-minded, intolerant, fundamentalist, or religious crazies; too much for common sense. We fear for our own success. We are afraid we could lose something meaningful, for example our own undamaged reputation.

If we shrink back from  enmity and dare not commit ourselves to the truth, to take a stand for Jesus and the Jewish people, for God’s Word and plan, we will submit all the more when matters get serious.

Therefore we must ask ourselves if there is something in our lives which we cannot let go of. We know from Matthew 24 that we do not have the darkness behind us, but ahead of us. Jesus said that lawlessness and evil would take over and that love would grow cold in many. The latter are people who can be overcome by the devil because they do not cling to the cross - but to their own lives and the things which bind them to this world. What haven’t people done to save their own lives?!

The open gate of inferiority feelings

A second open gate whereby evil can enter is inferiority, pride, arrogance. A person who is not sure of his own worth and identity will be threatened by whatever is strange and different, but also by weakness and misery, which reminds him of his own weakness. These inferiority feelings lead to pride and arrogance. A person makes himself the standard. Out of inferiority feelings, people are categorized in ranks or castes or acording to class. These categories define what each individual is worth.
It is a small step from classifying people to degrading them; to a definition of ruling and slave races.

Everybody has a tendency to such behaviour. Thus the devil can lead people through their own inferiority feelings into such an arrogance that they think in terms of ruling and slave races. It is decided which life should be developed and which life eliminated because it is ill, weak, or strange. For example, along with the Jews, many Gypsies and sick folk, including physically and mentally handicapped, were murdered. The devil hates whatever is poor and miserable because he can thus deride God. Proverbs 17:5, "he who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker”.

The church’s need of salvation

The Holocaust revealed not only the reality of evil but also the necessity of man’s salvation. Even more: the Holocaust also reveals how much the church with all its denominations and splits is in need of salvation.

If the church had taken a clear stand then, the enemy could not have so easily reduced it to silence or even made it into his instrument. When the trains packed with Jews rolled towards Auschwitz on their way to the concentration camp, the cries of these people could be heard in the town. It is known that the priests told their congregations to sing louder so that the screaming could not be heard any longer.

Not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland and other nearby countries the majority of churches were aware of the Nazi crimes, but most of them were silent. When we are silent concerning evil, it creeps into our hearts and takes over. The church and all of us who know Jesus as Lord must be newly aware of the necessity of experiencing and living salvation, of returning to the cross. Evil is destroyed only at the cross; it loses access to people only at the cross.
This means that we must realise how much we ourselves need salvation, as formulated in the third chapter of Romans. We must accept this in our own lives and pray from our hearts, "Lord, deliver us from evil!” Evil wants to separate us from God, and thus from our brother as well. Evil is everything which directs our acts and thoughts to ourselves, making a priority of our own needs and goals. It is everything which makes us indifferent to our brother.

Evil always causes us to take sin lightly. Sin is not primarily moral misbehaviour, but lack of love and readiness to forgive in our daily lives; the alacrity with which we think negatively and disparagingly of one another, suspecting others of bad intentions. Sin is our refusal to show our brother and neighbour, whoever he is, that God is unconditionally for him. It is sin when we hurt a brother and then leave him with the wound, or when we grow bitter toward brothers and do not attempt to settle the matter. It is sin when we set our own judgement of our environment and the world’s attitudes above God’s Word and command. When we take sin lightly and do not resist evil in small matters, we have little with which to counter it when things become serious.

The ten righteous

I was deeply moved to see that in Auschwitz and other concentration camps some people overcame evil through their lives and deaths because they resisted it from the beginning. They did not love their lives, and even in such places gave themselves for others. These were people who in spite of enduring violence, torture, and humiliation gave no entry to hatred or bitterness. It was thanks to their relationship to Jesus that the dignity and value of many of them could not be destroyed. In this hell, these few people became symbols of hope, even if not many of them were aware of it.

A German pastor once asked why God did not give Germany over to destruction after such a monstrous crime. I am convinced that it is because God found his "ten righteous” in Germany, men and women who voluntarily gave their lives for others. They could have kept silent and thus saved their lives, like all the others. But resistance to the power of evil is possible, as these brothers and sisters demonstrated, even if they went through atrocities and had to give up their lives. They thus testified that the devil couldn’t destroy what Jesus creates in a person’s life. This gives hope.

We cannot assume that we will never encounter similar situations in the future. But we can pray from our hearts that even now we will not allow ourselves to be overcome by any evil in our daily lives; that we will counter evil with the same testimony; that God cares for our lives, our dignity, our security; and that no one can take from us what Jesus created in our lives.

Scapegoat Israel

Just as the cross must be the centre of the church, Israel can also be saved from evil only through the cross. Even though the Jews are God’s chosen people, these people are just as receptive to evil. We have to see clearly that the enemy tries with all his means to stamp his image on this people. In the controversy with the Palestinians, in the experience of terror and violence, Israel is in danger of being drawn into the same spiral of hatred, bitterness, and violence.

We as Christians must be all the more careful not to support the world’s sense of justice. The world is playing the advocate of the weak and the victims, calling Israel the aggressor, "Goliath”, and pleading for peace. The Near East conflict is reduced to the image of a heavily armed militia with tanks against stone-throwing children. Christians are told that it is a Christian command to take the side of the suppressed. The Jewish state is stamped the scapegoat, which is hindering justice and peace.

The negative, one-sided stand of the EU, the UNO, and many individual countries toward Israel should make us stop and think. Wasn’t it just like this before World War II, when the Jews were the scapegoats who took away jobs, ruled finances, and planned some sort of power ploys? The only difference is that it is not now the Jews as such who are made the scapegoat, but the state of Israel.  

When we think of the restraint of the EU, the UNO, and many nations in the face of atrocities and lack of human rights in Islamic countries - as well as Africa, Russia, China, and Asia – and what standard is expected of Israel (of course in the name of justice), it could make one sick from the stench of hypocrisy and inconsistency.
The demand for justice is legitimate and necessary. But when that demand is laid only on Israel, and seldom or never on the political and religious Palestinian leadership who daily call through TV, radio, and newspapers for hatred, violence, and murder of the Jewish people; when, on the contrary, this attitude is excused and explained; when it costs many Jewish lives – then it can’t be held against us when the suspicion arises that this attitude is less a matter of justice than of the old spirit which now accuses Israel and really means the Jewish people.

The voice of the church

It is depressing how often the church’s voice can be heard at the forefront of this one-sided accusation of Israel. The state of Israel is not perfect. It has mistakes, omissions, injustice, pride, arrogance. But which country, which individual person, after looking into his own heart, can throw the first stone? Israel can be and should be criticised, but only by those who apply the same standard of justice to themselves and to other nations. The state of Israel, and with it the Jewish people, cannot again become the scapegoat for the nations’ impotence and failure.

Today it takes courage for a Christian to resist firmly the superficial and thoughtless slogans about justice which encourage enmity toward Israel. Many will cry that we are intolerant, narrow-minded, and unjust. We have to find the courage to stand up for the truth by the word of our testimony, as in Rev. 12:11. We don’t want to make our own opinion, our own interpretation of history and politics but rather take as our standard the Biblical standard of God. We  know that it is a God of life who sovereignly chose the Jewish people and promised them the Land. He will save Israel and make them a blessing for all peoples.

If the church does not realise by which door evil seeks to enter, it will end where it stood during World War II. This church which, with few exceptions, did not resist evil, caused great damage to the Jewish people.

In the face of developments in Germany, Switzerland, and all of Europe, there is no reason to assume that in the coming days the Holocaust will not be repeated. On the contrary, I believe that the church will quite soon receive its second chance in its relationship to the Jewish people. Then it will be able to demonstrate whether it still wants to be part of the silent majority, which has so many good humanistic arguments against Israel and the Jewish people – or whether it wants to be a church which "overcomes by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and does not love its life so much as to shrink from death.”

Hope and the future

Back to Auschwitz. As we were standing in those gas chambers and crematoria, praying and singing, it moved me to realise again that the devil does not attain his goals. Sixty years later we stand in this place and declare that there is a future for the Jewish people and for everybody who comes to Jesus. In our lives we want to proclaim this future and this hope to the Jewish people and out into the world: There is a future, there is a hope - but only on the basis of the cross.

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