27 January 2025| Oakhampton, UK [Victor Hulbert]
It is eighty years since the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 1945. Faced with around 9,000 emaciated prisoners in the collection of several camps, the liberating Soviet soldiers were shocked and horrified. Soon the wider world joined them in that horror. 27 January is now the day the world remembers the Holocaust, its victims and those from other acts of genocide throughout history.
More than one million people died in the camp, adding to the total of some six million destroyed in the Nazi Holocaust. Most were Jews, but gypsies, the physically or mentally disabled, and those who opposed the regime or who were seen as Jewish sympathisers also found themselves incarcerated there.
Probably the best-known Christian to be imprisoned was the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, remembered for his leadership role in the Confessing Church. The Nazis hung him on 6 April 1945, after he spent two years in various concentration camps. Among his many wise sayings he wrote, “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.”
Another Christian prisoner was Corrie ten Boom who, with her family, had helped some 800 Jews escape the Holocaust until a Dutch neighbour betrayed them. Her book The Hiding Place and subsequent mission of forgiveness made a significant impact. How can you forgive those SS guards who caused so much suffering and the death of her sister?
There are many stories to tell.
One such story came unexpectedly several years ago when I interviewed Pastor Ryszard Jankowski. At the time, he was president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Poland. He told me the remarkable story of how the church acquired a beautiful campsite even during the communist era. Suddenly, he diverted to talking about his family and his faith.
I kept the camera rolling and learnt how his grandmother’s entire family had been rounded up and imprisoned in Auschwitz and Ravensbrook because of their faith. His grandmother died there but instilled such faith in her daughters that her influence spread through the following generations. Eighty years on, there is living testimony to her faith.
Ryszard is a kindly, gentle man. If he is passionate about one thing, it is that God is love and has a purpose for each one of us. His burning desire is for as many people as possible to know that God – even in difficult times.
I do not know his favourite Bible verse, but perhaps it could be this:
‘He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?’ [Micah 6:8 NKJV]
Featured image: Shutterstock
