Last
week, I had the opportunity to chaperone a senior field trip to Washington D.C.
I gladly accepted the opportunity because most of my students from my
first-year teaching were attending. Washington D.C. was not unfamiliar to me,
as my parents used to take me occasionally when I was a child. But I was
excited to go again. I spent most of my afternoon in the Holocaust Memorial
Museum. This post is a collection of my thoughts.
I
sincerely regret my lack of effort in history class during my secondary education
years. I sometimes wish I could go back and re-take some history classes.
History can often feel unreal. When I think about the stories of American wars,
revolutions, world wars, they can often feel too distant. But those were real stories. They really did happen,
and people’s lives were affected. We can become de-sensitized to the tragedy,
trauma, and suffering of human beings. We can study the stories and facts
without a human heart and we can forget to empathize with our fellow human
beings. The Holocaust is a well-known and well-taught event in history, but
perhaps the frequency of which we discuss the Holocaust has caused us to become
de-sensitized to its atrocities. My interest in the Holocaust is rooted in my
belief that the Jewish people have an irrevocable calling from God and are
central to the Gospel. How do we biblically interpret the events of the
Holocaust? How should we respond? These are the very difficult questions that I
was asking myself and that I am still asking myself.
As
I walked through the Holocaust Museum, I asked the Lord to give me His heart
concerning Israel. I asked Him to help me understand because my heart does not.
I can’t say that I received any more clarity, but I was quite emotional through
the exhibits. The museum guides visitors through a chronological sequence of
the Holocaust and puts everything in context very well. The images and graphic
become harder and harder to stomach as you walk through the museum. I have
posted some pictures that I took (photograph is allowed at the museum). At the
end of the museum, there is a memorial hall with Biblical verses on the walls.
I walked in and my heart dropped when I saw the verse in front of me. It was
Deuteronomy 30:19, “I call heaven and earth to witness this day; I have put
before you life and death, blessing and curse, choose life – that you and your
offspring shall live.” In this passage, the Lord is about to teach Moses a song
that will bear witness against the sons of Israel. It is a song that declares
that the people of Israel will indeed break the covenant, many evils and
troubles will come upon them, and the Lord will have compassion and mercy on
them. This is a song that was meant to testify against them when those things
happened. Interestingly, the theme of the museum is “for the dead and the
living we must bear witness.” If we are to take the Song of Moses seriously,
then it is proper to say that the Holocaust is actually an outplaying of
covenantal unfaithfulness? I cannot even imagine saying that statement to a
Jewish person, being a Gentile myself. Did God hand over His people? Did God
deliver His people to death? Did He allow His people to suffer and die?
During
these past few weeks, I have also been reading a book, titled “Holocaust: A
History”, written by Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt. It is a secular
book that I checked out from the library in hopes of understanding more about
the Holocaust. One of the heavy focuses of the book is to explain this idea of
pure and undefiled Aryan blood and to explore the progression of racism to
genocide. Hitler writes in Mein Kampf,
“It is a half-measure to let incurably sick people steadily contaminate the
remaining health ones. This is in keeping with the humanitarianism which, to
avoid hurting one individual, lets a hundred others perish. The demand that
defective people by prevented from propagating equally defective offspring is a
demand of the clearest reason and if systematically executed represents the
most humane act of mankind.” These incurably sick people were the Jews and if
he could find a way to stop their “propagation”, he would actually be
performing an act of service for mankind. Are these ideas tied to Darwinism and
natural selection? If natural selection is the means by which evolution
progresses and species advance, then should we not let the weaker among us die?
Better yet, should be “help“ the process of natural selection by exterminating
the week? These are some very thought-provoking and challenging questions.
Lastly,
this quote stood out to me the most after I finished reading the book I
mentioned earlier. Many Jews were proponents of Zionism and persecution and
genocide in Europe only strengthened the movement. Where else could Jews be
safe? They looked towards their homeland. Speaking about the hope of Jewish
state, the Viennese
Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, wrote: “…in brief, like all civilized
peoples; so that we may be able to form our state to educate our people for the
tasks which at present still lie beyond our vision. For surely God would not have kept us alive if there were not assigned
to us a specific role in the history of mankind.” I am astonished by this
last sentence because even Herzl is able to recognize that His people have a
specific calling from God. The Israelis that I have encountered have
consistently told me about their resiliency as a people, that they are a people
that simply know how to survive. They claim that it is their strength that
allows them to survive, but I say that it is the will and power of God that destines
this people.
