January 27th marked the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the most prolific and deadly of all the Nazi death camps, Auschwitz. The day is called International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The anniversary marks the beginning of the end of the reign of unspeakable terror that had engulfed Europe and the rest of the world under the demonic leadership of Adolf Hitler and his evil minions of Nazi followers. These pride-filled followers of Lucifer managed to kill over six million Jews and close to six million others during this dark time. It is hard to comprehend the scope of such depravity and how it could have happened. For some people, having their pride fueled by the dark light of Satan’s world can be a powerful and irresistible aphrodisiac. But that dark light is rejected by many. There are those who embrace the light of God. They are the ones who spit in the face of Satan even if it means sacrificing their very lives.
The history of the Holocaust is filled with stories of those who are considered “Righteous Among Nations”. Yad Vashem is the organization authorized by the Israeli Knesset to document the history of the Jewish people of the Holocaust. This list includes non-Jews who helped their Jewish brothers and sisters to hide or escape, or to whom they just gave comfort to as their executioners approached. Many Catholics are included in the “Righteous Among Nations” including priests, brothers, nuns and lay persons.
There are so many stories of courage in the face of terrible torture and death. The “Blessed Martyrs of Nowogrodek’ were eleven nuns who volunteered to give their lives if the Nazis would spare 120 laypersons. The layperson’s names were removed from the death list and those people were sent to work camps. The Sisters were taken to an open pit on August 1, 1943, and shot dead one at a time. Pope John Paul II beatified them on on March 5, 2000. In Poland there were the “108 Martyrs of World War II”. This included three bishops, 52 priests, 26 religious men, eight women religious and nine lay people, all executed simply because they were Catholic. They were beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 13, 1999 and their feast day is on June 12.
There are so many more, people who were just like us. They had moms and dads and wives and husbands and brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews. They had hopes and dreams. They loved, they cried, were cold in winter and perspired in summer. They enjoyed picnics and Christmas and Easter. They took their children to church on Sunday morning and maybe to the park in the afternoon to feed the ducks and squirrels. They quietly embraced the dignity of their own selves, just as we all try to do.
Then “they” came. The “other” people. The ones in power. The ones who had the “law” on their side and were willing to carry it out no matter how heinous; willing to carry out their “orders” even if those orders meant committing torture and murder under the “rule of law”. There were thousands of recruits ready and willing to do this evil. How could this be? It can be because Satan is a powerful force and his Creator, our God, in His perfection cannot tamper with the free-will He has given to us. Consequently, some willingly embrace evil. Others embrace the God of Love and spit in the face of evil. The word used to describe this is “choices”.
There are so many people who were Holocaust victims and are now considered “Righteous Among Nations”. Most of us have heard of St. Maximillian Kolbe and St. Edith Stein, who converted to Catholicism and became a nun known as Sister Theresa Benedicta. She was canonized a Saint in in 1998. There were many more and my intention is to continue presenting different people who are 20th century Catholic heroes who joined forces with their Jewish brothers and sisters to fight the evil that brought so many of them to their horrible deaths. Their lives must be told to our young people because these (and the others like them that blanket the pages of history) are the people Jesus was talking about when He said, (John 15: 13) “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”. History does repeat itself and the young people of today seem to have scant knowledge of it. They should know so they can see. They must know so they can stand up to evil as did their relatives of the past.
As history has shown time and again, the evil that was embraced and enforced by the Nazi regime was defeated as, ultimately, is all evil. It slithered into the depths of hell and then, as is its hateful yet tempting way, resurfaced somewhere else. The ongoing war between Good and Evil will continue until the end of time. But Love can never lose and God is Love.
LarryPeterson
Larry is a Catholic/Christian author and blogger and posts weekly commentary. His work has appeared in such publications as Zenit from Rome, Aleteia, New Evangelists, Top Catholic Blogs, Big Pulpit, Catholic365.com and others. His first children's picture book, "Slippery Willie's Stupid, Ugly Shoes" was published in 2011. In 2012, his full-length novel, "The Priest and the Peaches" was released. His second novel, "The Demons of Abadon", was released in the spring of 2016. Larry’s latest novel, “Horizon Homeless” was released in ebook format in May of 2017 and the paperback followed on July 27, 2017. Larry belongs to the Catholic Writer’s Guild, The Catholic Writer’s Society, The Knights of Columbus, and the St. Vincent de Paul Society. He has been an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion for over twenty years bringing communion to the homebound and hospitalized. He lives in Pinellas Park, Florida and his kids and six grandchildren all live within three miles of each other. His first wife died of cancer in 2003. He remarried four years later and became the primary caregiver for his wife, Martha who came down with Non-Hodgins Lymphoma in 2011. The cancer was in remission when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in October of 2014. Sadly and unexpectedly, Martha passed away on March 27, 2017. The writer says, "God has me where he needs me and I try my best to make Him proud. Larry’s blog site is http://www.slipperywillie.blogspot.com You can find more at www.larrypeterson-author.com
My wife and I visited Auschwitz and its neighbor, Birkenau. Both of them have appeared in documentaries and movies, so they seemed familiar. Auschwitz looked tame enough, with mature trees and the stone barracks that once belonged to the Polish Army. But then we saw the barbed wire fences, the machine gun nests and the once-used gallows upon which its SS commandant was hanged.
We walked through the wrought iron gate, beneath the words, “Arbeit Macht Frei,” (Work makes us free). Among the first to step through that arch were Polish Roman Catholic Religious. We stood near the barracks where one of them, St. Maximillian Kolbe starved. Later we passed through the gas chamber where the mass murders began. St. Edith Stein may have died there. Today tourist take pictures where so many suffocated. Beyond the chamber’s exit still stands the crematoria.
Birkenau also known as Auschwitz II, is much larger. It has a rail-road yard with parallel sets of tracks to accommodate the arrivals of many trains at once. Some of its long, wooden barracks have changed little over the decades, but the Nazis destroyed its massive gas chamber complex before they fled the Allies. Anne Frank’s suit case lies on top of a pile of other valises. Boxes containing tens of thousands of eye-glasses and troughs of clothing and other personal items remain on display.
These camps remind us of the reality of the evil that lurks within the hearts of humans who have lost their way. These two of many such camps are not the only examples of the genocides that have plagued humanity.
Let us pray for our species that it may recognize the Lord of life and submit to God’s loving yoke and through it achieve fulfillment in God’s love.
Thanks for sharing that Don. The Holocaust is a glimpse into Satan’s world. Hard to imagine so many people could actually participate in committing these horrors. Makes one wonder—