Untitled Sermon (2)

Between 1939 and 1945

The Nazi party

Committed some of the worst war crimes

The modern world has ever seen

In fact what happened here in Germany

During World War II

Can only be described

As the worst nightmare,

Anyone can possibly imagine

In fact I don’t recall ever seeing

A horror film

That even comes close

To what happened

Here in Germany

I have hard time relating anything

That I have seen

Or personally experienced

When I compare the

The systematic murder

And determined effort

That went in to the killing

Of the Jewish people

In reality the holocaust is best defined as an

Organized effort

Towards exterminating

An entire people group

They killed millions of people

I want you to try and picture this

And I understand this may be hard for some of us

But its important

Because history

Teaches us a lesson here

That is vital

To our present and our future

But picture this

One day

You and your family

Are forced out of your home

Forced to leave all of your belongings

Leave your family run business

Your pets

Your favorite books

Or keep sakes

Forced to abandon anything familiar

You are rounded up by soldiers

Forced into vehicles

Forced into train box cars

Crammed in like sardines

Or maybe forced to walk long distances

To undisclosed locations

For an undisclosed period of time

Maybe they forcibly separated you from your spouse

Separated you from your kids

And even from the rest of your family

Without ever knowing or telling you

What is going to happen

Or If you will ever see them again

Or even if you will survive

PAUSE***

What I just described to you is exactly what happened

To the Jews during the holocaust

And not just the Jews

But to many other people groups

That the Nazi’s deemed worthless

For the vast majority of those people

That were round up

They would never be seen again

They would be forced into labor camps

Or concentration camps

And literally forced to work

Until they died

That is if they didn’t just decide to kill

From the beginning

If you got sick

They killed you

If you showed weakness

You were shot on site

If you argued

They killed you

Believe it or not, the museum I just visited said

If you are a prisoner

And you lost your head gear

They killed you

The holocaust in short

Was an attempt to wipe out

An entire race of people

An entire people group that Adolf Hitler

Saw as problematic

And saw as one of the reasons

Why Germany was failing

Whether this was true or not

Didn’t matter

Facts don’t matter under this type of leadership

What mattered is the rhetoric

Because of the propaganda

Exterminating the Jewish race

Became government policy

In fact experts argue that nearly 1/3 of all Jews were killed at this time

That is 6,000,000 men, women, children, elderly

Killed, raped, beaten, experimented on

And ultimately thrown away like yesterdays garbage

Whats unique is that

Recently I was fortunate enough to experience a concentration camp

I was able to witness the gas chambers

The experiments

The new methods of killing people

In a systematic way

That can only be described as factory of killing

In fact the holocaust museum

Tells a story

Where Hitler had a choice

Nearing the end of the war

In which he could send assets

To fend off the Russians and help the front lines

And potentially win the war

Or at least help the war effort

Or he could send his assets to kill more Jews

This man was so determined to kill the Jewish people

He actually sent the much needed supplies

Weapons

Anything and everything needed on the front

He sent it all

To ensure every last Jew was dead

I mean its absolutely incredible

What happened here

So as we move out here today

We are going to read a few scenarios

And we are going to ask some questions

Some thought provoking questions

That ask us how we may have responded personally

How we can prevent this from ever happening again

How we can be apart of the solution

Because the reality is

Hitler was evil

Hitler did unspeakable acts on the Jews

But Hitler is just one person

But the Nazis as a whole

Took part in the atrocities

And yet they are just a small sliver of history

A history of behavior that is dark

And filled with blood

Genocide is nothing new,

And it still occurs to this day

Back in WWII

The communist under Joseph Stalin

killed an estimated 20,000,000 people

Under the communist regime in China

Mao Zedong killed an estimated 45-70 million people

Depending upon which historian you talk to

Currently in Africa

There are several organizations

That are wiping out entire sections of people

Simply because they believe in something different

Or they come from a different part of the world

And the reality is

The only way to combat evil like this

Is with education

Determination

And a united front that is focused

And purposed putting this in the past

So please, I encourage you

Take today seriously

Take today as a starting point

On your own education

Regarding this subject

And use today to reflect on what you can do

To continue to be apart of the solution