Seventy-two years ago, on January 27th, 1945, the largest of the Nazi death camps (Auschwitz-Birkenau) was liberated. In honor of the approximately 6,000,000 Jews and 5,000,000 others murdered during the Holocaust, the United Nations General Assembly resolved in 2005 that henceforth this be an International Day of Holocaust Remembrance.
For Christians such as myself, Holocaust remembrance poses unique challenges. As religious studies Professor and Presbyterian minister Stephen Haynes puts it, “although Christian anti-Judaism did not by itself make the Holocaust possible… [it] could not have occurred without Christianity.”
The seeds for the Holocaust lay in the history of anti-Semitism, a strand of which has long been perpetuated in the Christian Church. For instance, in his book, On the Jews and Their Lies, Martin Luther encourages Christians to set the Jews’ synagogues and schools on fire, raise and destroy their houses, and take their prayer books and Talmudic writings. Such sentiments often were quoted and circulated in Nazi Germany as rationale for the Holocaust.
Indeed, the Holocaust sprang from a predominantly Christian part of the world. Many who declared Jesus as “Lord and Savior” were personally involved in the atrocities.
Auschwitz I, 2012
In reflecting on this painful history, it has been important for me to acknowledge that many of the same forces that allowed the Holocaust continue to exert themselves today – including in the Christian Church and in myself. For example, the indifference to diverse others’ suffering often showed by Christians during the Holocaust remains evident.
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Andy Tix 