Auschwitz happened in my lifetime

Over the years I have been able to visit some places that proved exhilarating. Others have left me somber and contemplative. None more than Auschwitz.

Seventy years ago today Soviet troops entered the camp and liberated the survivors. The iconic sign at the entrance reads “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” (“Work makes free”). There is truth in the statement by itself, but in this case it was deceptive. Reports say that about a million people, mostly Jews, were killed there between 1940 and 1945.

The entrance to Auschwitz. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins, 1991.

Numerous questions come to mind as we contemplate this horrible tragedy. Why did it happen? Why were Jews singled out for elimination? Has something similar, on a lesser scale, happened to other groups? Doubtless. Could it happen again? In the United States? Could Christians face a similar situation?

When we think that we are superior to other humans we overlook the basic premise of creation.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27 ESV)

The apostle Paul spoke to the same issue before the Areopagus in Athens.

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ (Acts 17:26-28 ESV)

The Google Cultural Institute has produced an interesting presentation on the “Evacuation and Liberation of the Auschwitz Camp” here.