When I was a teacher, one of my favorite units was exploring the impact of world events like the Holocaust and the Russian Revolution on history. Every year, students would receive an identification card and trace that individual through the course of the atrocities that occurred in Auschwitz. Though it’s been nearly two years since I stopped teaching, I hold those lessons near and dear to my heart.
This past weekend, my husband and I had an opportunity to visit the Auschwitz exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum. From the moment we set foot into the crowded rooms, the weight of memories, silence, and testimonies filled the air. Every wall recorded mass extermination and Germany’s takeover. TV screens blared videos of survivors and victims alike. People around me shook their heads, blew their noses, and wiped away tears—some, viewing the brutalities for the first time. Because one thing was evident inside the walls of this museum: this experience wasn’t just historical, it was deeply spiritual.
Why Remembering Matters
Especially for people of faith, remembering events like the Holocaust matters for a variety of reasons. First, there is an immense danger when we become removed from history. Not only do we quickly and easily forget, but we also lose empathy, insight, and overall awareness. In one of the survivor accounts, a thin man noted that people had already begun saying the entire event never happened. It was propaganda or an event “imagined.” Despite hard facts and evidence, even the Nazi’s themselves tried to go along with this theory despite being the ones to cause harm. Shortly after the Allied forces liberated the concentration and extermination camps, the Nazi’s tried to burn evidence of the events that had occurred. But it was too late and nearly impossible.
While the conclusion of WWII in 1945 freed the remaining prisoners, it didn’t undo the damage that had already taken place. Survivors will tell you that the “never again” mantra isn’t just a happy slogan, but a moral responsibility. And the minute we forget these events really happened, the easier it will be for something like this to happen again.
In the poem "First They Came," by Pastor Martin Niemöller, Niemöller explains what happens when groups of people divide themselves along lines of gender, race, or religion. If we only care about people like us, what will happen when no one like us remains? The short poem reads this way:
“First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.”
When we forget, ignore, or become naive to events like these in history, we produce fertile ground for repetition. If we forget what has happened, not only are these events likely to happen again, but everything that victims before us have endured goes down in vain. It can also significantly distort our views of God and His people.
The Faith Tension: Where Was God and Where Were People?
One of the biggest questions God’s people have in light of events like these is, "Where was God?" Second, where were His people? And third, why did He allow all this to happen?
I won’t pretend to have all the answers to these questions. I don’t always understand why good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. Why are babies dashed upon rocks? Why are individuals tortured? Why do crime rates continue to increase?
But what I do know is that we live in a fallen and broken world, and this place isn’t our home. That doesn’t make the suffering and horrible events easier to understand or navigate, but it does remind us that this isn’t God’s plan for His people.
In his memoir Night, Eli Wiesel notes that upon seeing and living through the treacherous events of the Holocaust, a still small voice rang out from within his spirit: “Where is He? (Where is God?) Here he is—He is hanging here on this gallows.”
While I can’t fathom that kind of faith, people like Wiesel remind me that human evil will continue to exist, but God’s presence is with and within us even when we can’t fathom understanding suffering. God grieves with His people, and He’s not absent. But it’s okay not to know why these things happened in the first place.
Remembering As a Spiritual Practice
Though many years have passed since the horrible events of concentration camps and mass killings took place, the Bible reminds us to remember things like these as lessons and warnings. For example, in the book of Deuteronomy, God’s people were called to remember His faithfulness despite the calamity they endured. In the Psalms, we’re shown it’s okay to lament. Even Jesus told His Disciples to take communion in remembrance of Him. Because remembering changes us. But silence stifles the impact.
Today, you and I have a choice to remember events so that they do not happen again. This is an immense choice between courage and comfort. But slow erosion allows injustice. We’re called to quiet obedience, not quiet fear. And as Christians, this means guarding against the dehumanization of all people. It means loving all people, especially those who look or believe differently from you.
Remembering as a spiritual practice means paying attention to issues such as language, power, and exclusion. It’s standing up for orphans, widows, and those being abused or marginalized. It’s choosing conscience over convenience, and not being afraid to help those in dire need.
While we pray that events like the Holocaust never happen again, I want to leave you with a quote from the museum that will never leave me:
“You who are passing by. I beg you. Do something. Learn a dance step. Something to justify your existence. Something that gives you the right to be dressed in your skin, in your body hair. Learn to walk and to laugh. Because it would be too senseless after all for so many to have died while you live doing nothing with your life” (Excerpt from A Prayer to the Living to Forgive them for Being Alive, 1971, Charlotte Delbo, Auschwitz Survivor).
Leaving with Questions
As you read this post, you probably still have many questions about the Holocaust, Hitler, and why this suffering took place. I know my students always did at the end of our unit.
But hold onto those inquiries and let them lead you. Feel the emotions. Take time to process them and learn from them. Share how you’re feeling. But allow those things to shape how you live now. Research. Dig deep. Read all the books and autobiographies you can. Try to understand what you can. Rest in what you can’t.
Faith that remembers, resists, and responds is essential. Remember these events. Resist anything that even remotely portrays its existence in our world today. Respond with truth and justice as Jesus would. Use your memory as discipleship. Choose vigilance, compassion, and courage. Then, live with a faith that doesn’t look away, even when the world tries to remain silent.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Carsten Koall/Stringer
