When Selfless Love replaced Anti-Semitism

By Larry Peterson

Anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews) has been dominating the news cycles ever since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked thousands of young Jewish people at a concert in Gaza. They massacred thousands of Jewish people, young and old, including children and babies. The accounts of the brutal rapes, beatings, and of children and babies being burned alive have filled the news and social media ever since. This narrative reflects on a different time, a time when brotherly love spit in the eye of Anti-Semitism and ultimately ruled the day.

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 during the Holocaust. This list includes non-Jews who helped their Jewish brothers and sisters to hide,  escape,  or to whom they just gave comfort as their executioners approached. The “Righteous Among Nations” includes many Catholics, priests, brothers, nuns, and laypeople.

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 Jewish laypersons. Those names were removed from the death list, and those people were sent to work camps. On August 1, 1943, Nazi guards directed the Sisters to an open pit and shot them dead one at a time. Pope John Paul II beatified them on March 5, 2000. Poland had 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, dads, wives, husbands, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and nieces and nephews. They had hopes and dreams. They loved, 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 worshipped the Swaztika. They were willing to carry out their assignments no matter how depraved the act. They carried  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 created. 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.”

Many people 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 as a Saint in 1998. There were many more.

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. The young people of today seem to have scant knowledge of  Anti-Semitism. They should know its history.. They must know so they can stand up to evil, as did their past relatives.

As history has shown time and again, the evil that was embraced and enforced by the Nazi regime was ultimately defeated as, is all evil. It slithered into the depths of hell and then, its hateful yet tempting way, resurfces somewhere else. Today, we see it expose itself all across our nation. The ongoing war between Good and Evil will continue until the end of time. But love can never be lost, and God is love.

January 27, 2025, will mark the 80th 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. Some embrace the light of God. They are the ones who spit in the face of Satan, even if it means sacrificing their very lives.

Copyright©Larry Peterson 2024