GROW
NEWS
SPECIAL EDITION
FEB
2017
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Auschwitz- a personal reflection
Friday 27th January was Holocaust Memorial Day. The week before, it
was with very mixed feelings that I boarded a plane at Stansted Airport
heading for Cracow, Poland. I had accepted the invitation to join Justin
Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and some 50 other Anglican clergy
on a pilgrimage to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi
concentration and death camps where over 1.1 million men, women and
children were killed during the Second World War. It wasn’t a place I
wanted to visit (who would wish to see something of the horror that went
on there?), and yet, when the invitation came, I knew this was
somewhere I ought to see; a place, however terrible, I must make the
effort to visit.
Walking around the camp in Birkenau in temperatures of -17, I wore a
vest, shirt, jumper, thick trousers, thick socks, scarf, coat, hat and gloves,
but after several hours the cold began to penetrate and no matter what I
did I could not get warm. We learned from our Polish Guide that most
prisoners were only allowed to wear one thin layer of clothing. Meals
consisted of a cup of coffee for breakfast, a bowl of soup for lunch and a
piece of bread for dinner. The day was taken up with hard labour and at
night eight people would share one bunk. Little wonder, as we walked
down the corridor lined with photographs of prisoners and spied the date
they were admitted and the date they died, most only lasted a few
weeks. If you were not killed in the gas chamber, the likelihood was you
would die of starvation or disease or from medical experimentation at the
hands of Dr Josef Mengele (‘the angel of death’).
Three things stood out:
1. It was not all about me, and yet… it was. The numbers were
overwhelming: 150,000 Polish people were sent there, 23,000 Gypsies,
15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and nearly 1,000,000 Jews were
exterminated. Would I have resisted? Would I have fought back? We
were told the story of Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest. One day a
prisoner escaped from the Camp, so the Nazis selected ten others to be
killed by starvation in reprisal for the escape. One of the men selected to
die began to cry, “My wife! My children! I will never see them again!” At
that point Father Kolbe stepped forward, he had no wife or children, so
he asked to die in this man’s place. His request was granted. I asked
myself could I have done that? In this place of unimaginable horror
where guards threw babies into the air and shot them for target practice
and where people ceased to be a name and became mere ‘numbers’
(Father Kolbe was simply prisoner 16770) I began see how it was that
people kept quiet, ignored what was going on, and put their energy into
simply ‘surviving’ for fear of what would be done to them or their loved
ones if they resisted. At the most basic level, could I have endured more
than a week in the freezing Winter or the sweltering Summer?
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2. What difference did the church make? Notable Christians opposed
the Nazi regime. Pastor Martin Niemöller spoke out and was imprisoned
in the camp at Dachau. Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer even plotted to
assassinate Hitler and, for that, was himself executed. Of course, many
Christians took up arms to fight the Nazis and yet many also supported
or turned a blind eye to the terrible antisemitism. I was very struck by one
of the talks given by Sam Wells whilst we were in Auschwitz. He told the
story of Duncan Forrester (Professor of Ethics at Edinburgh University)
who, whilst holidaying in Germany, drives past the concentration camp at
Dachau: ‘Just outside the perimeter wire there stood a graceful little
eighteenth century church, freshly painted and with a typical central
European onion dome on the top of its tower… Here was a Christian
church, almost certainly regularly used for worship, standing less than a
hundred yards, visible to anyone moving about inside the camp.”
Forrester begins to speculate: who would have worshipped there on a
Sunday? Local villagers? Members of the staff of the Camp and their
families? Perhaps the camp Commandant or a Doctor involved with
experiments on prisoners? ‘What would the worship and the life of the
church say to them? Would it give them solace, allowing them to carry on
their activities with a quiet mind? Would it transport them to a different
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FEB 2017
by and watches without speaking out? The great missionary C. T. Studd,
wrote ‘Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell, I’d
rather run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.’ It was crucial that that
church was where it was - right by the camp - but did it make any
difference?
world, enabling them to evade responsibility for what they did in this
world? Would they receive, beneath that onion dome, a premature and
illusory forgiveness, a cheap grace that makes no demands, at a knock
down price?… Did the congregation meeting in that little church in the
shadow of Dachau raise up prophets who dared to denounce the system
and confront the evil?… Was the congregation a peaceable community
which by its very existence and walk presented an alternative to the
violence being unleashed behind the fence?…’ Perhaps most chilling of
all, Forrester adds, ‘In all probability it was just a quiet congregation
meeting in a much loved building, and carrying on as if nothing unusual
was happening behind the wire close by.’ Ouch! I felt the sting of that! It
made me wonder what difference does my faith in Jesus make to me so
that I don’t just stand idly by when sin and evil abound? What difference
does our church make? Jesus says we are meant to be the light of the
world, a city on a hill, the salt of the earth. But he also says its possible to
lose our saltiness and then be good for nothing - not able to preserve
society, or disinfect it or flavour it. What are the evils that our church sits
Book of the Month
As the Nazi madness swept across Europe, a quiet watchmaker’s family
in Holland risked everything for the sake of others, and for the love of
Christ. Despite the danger and threat of discovery, they courageously
offered shelter to persecuted Jews. Then a trap brought about the
family’s arrest. Could God’s love shine through, even in Ravensbruck
Concentration Camp?
"This is one of the easiest and most moving
and encouraging books I have ever read! I
challenge you to read this and not be
inspired to want to love and serve Jesus
more!” - David Gibb
Got a question, feedback or article?
David Gibb
FREE!
St Andrew’s Book of the Month: 'The Hiding Place', by Corrie Ten
Boom - special discounted price of £3
Corrie ten Boom’s personal story is an
inspiration to millions and has continued to
be a best seller since its original publication
in 1972 as well as being made into a
popular feature film.
3. Light shines in the darkness. It was not all darkness. Amidst the
terrifying acts of butchery, torture and killing, there were acts of bravery,
courage and love like Father Kolbe’s sacrifice. I had packed my copy of
Corrie Ten Boom’s story, ‘The Hiding Place’, and so I took it out and
began to read of her extraordinary tale. A Christian, Corrie and her family
hid many hundreds of Jews from the Nazis, but was eventually captured
and imprisoned in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp where all her family
died. Life in the camp was almost unbearable, but Corrie and her sister
Betsie spent their time sharing Jesus' love with their fellow prisoners.
They knew God’s presence with them and they saw God at work,
bringing hope, life and love to many of the women in that terrible place
because of Corrie and Betsie's witness to them. As Betsie lay dying she
pleaded with Corrie to survive so that she could get out and tell the world
that ’there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.’ And that’s
what Corrie did, travelling the world well into her eighties telling of Jesus,
The Light of the World - who shone, even in the darkness of those
terrible camps. As I read that wonderful book, I thanked God for Betsie,
Corrie and the countless others who quietly and defiantly by their love,
prayers and very existence presented an alternative to the violence all
around them.
ONLY
£3
Special Film Night
‘Return to the Hiding Place’ (certificate 12)
SPECIAL SHOWING AT ST ANDREW’S
Thursday 23rd March, 7.30 - 9.30pm.
Set in Holland during the Second World War, it
tells the true and heroic story of Corrie Ten Boom’s
secret army of teenagers who helped her rescue
more than 800 Jews from the horrors of the Nazi
concentration camps. A film which will move and
inspire you, and which is ideal to invite friends and
family to come and see who would not normally
come along to church.
EVENT
RETURN TO THE HIDING PLACE
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