Well, actually, I can and I do.
During the Feast of Tabernacles just over a couple of months ago, a number of us went to see the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum close to Berlin, and were taken on a tour conducted by an American lady who was an expert on the Holocaust. This place was a Nazi concentration camp used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May 1945. Jews and those opposed to the Nazi regime were at the forefront of those who were killed.
The website states the following:
“Discover the brutal history of the facility that was primarily used for political prisoners but also the administrative center of the Nazi concentration camp system. Our informative guides expose the grim realities of life and death at Sachsenhausen. We will explain stories of tragedy and triumph. Explain how everyday life was in the camp, and some of the tactics used here. Although this is a very sobering and somber tour we also like to celebrate some of the strong personalities[,] survivors and victims that suffered here but whose actions bring inspiration to this day!”
It was, in fact, a very stark reminder of man’s inhumanity to man and how, it appears, people were just killed for the sake of being killed. We were told that some staff members were actually paid a bonus for killing someone.
We saw the places where they lived and the conditions and numbers would have been terrible. We saw places where they died. We saw the horrors that happen when demonic activity takes place. There is plenty of newsreel footage available to show what went on at that time and newspapers from that era confirm that such atrocities did occur. It did happen.
The website goes on to say: “Some 200,000 people were imprisoned here and subjected to systematic torture, starvation, forced labor and some of the worst living conditions. As you tour the memorial you will uncover the truths about the camp where 50,000 people were brutally murdered by the Nazi’s and 60,000 held captive until 1950 during the Soviet era. Today the Sachsenhausen Memorial stands as a reminder to the horrors of the 20th century.”
Incredibly, there are the Holocaust-deniers. Wikipedia defines this as follows: “Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust during World War II. Holocaust denial often includes the following claims: that Nazi Germany’s Final Solution was aimed only at deporting Jews from the Reich, but that it did not include the extermination of Jews; that Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas chambers to mass murder Jews; or that the actual number of Jews killed was significantly lower than the historically accepted figure of 5 to 6 million, typically around a tenth of that figure.”
Today, apart from Holocaust-deniers, we have other conspiracy theorists who believe that the moon landing was filmed in Hollywood, that the earth is flat, that there are aliens amongst us and, probably for some, that the moon is made of green cheese!
Unfortunately, I have known of Church members who seemed to be “big” on conspiracy theories. It can become a religion all on its own and can be a dangerous distraction from the Truth that we have learned in the true Church of God.
In addition, denying that the Holocaust actually took place is divorcing oneself from reality.
Can you believe it? Well, actually, I can and I do. And the sobering thing is that these atrocities that were committed will again happen and, probably, in the fairly near future. The Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord will bring a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time” (Daniel 12:1). This time will be even more barbaric than those events in the 1940’s and it will be the only way that God will be able to get the attention of rebellious mankind.
A visit to such a former concentration camp is a very sobering business and it is a reality check on how human beings can behave – and will behave again in the near future. We should pray, with increasing fervor, that we may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).
