Poland: Auschwitz

Just a note of warning as you've probably gathered from the title of this post: This post is about Auschwitz and Birkenau, the horrors of the Holocaust, and has detail of what I saw and heard while there. Read at your own discretion. 

Three weeks ago today, when I was in Poland, our teams had time to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was such a sobering and somber day, but overall, I'm thankful for the opportunity. 

To walk the gravel roads the Jewish people walked and suffered on was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and seeing the camps and hearing and learning more about the Holocaust in general was important because it's getting lost in history. But, we are to remember. We are to stand for and love the Jewish nation, God's chosen ones.

Seeing how they lived and hearing the horror and brutality of Auschwitz was a stark reminder of the value of life and how inhumane the entire thing was. Yet, God is faithful to His people! 

What Satan tried to destroy through the hands of the Nazis, the Lord preserved by His mighty right hand.

The enemy doesn't want people learning more about the Holocaust and caring for the Jewish people. He wants the nation destroyed to stop the return of Yeshua, but we know who wins at the end. 

As we visited block after block, they're called, in one of the blocks I noticed the groove of the steps as the middle sagged more due to the weight and constant walking on the steps. I could imagine the throngs of people using those stairs over and over as they were ordered to go here or there by the soldiers working the camp. Not only was it surreal to realize that people walked on these steps, walked on these grounds, it was also surreal to see the blocks themselves and the small rooms they were placed in. With a small window near the top, the rooms were desolate and concrete—and I would imagine, cold. 

Our tour guide told us one man survived all five years of Auschwitz, which is unheard of, while there were some who lasted only one day, or one month. We walked down a hall filled with names and pictures of each prisoner, and in their frame their occupation was also listed. These Jewish people had lives, had families, had interesting jobs—some even worked in the government in some capacity, such as an official. Some were teachers, some were lawyers, some architects, and their lives were destroyed, just like that. Their lives were changed forever as they suffered unto death.

We went through a gas chamber and you can see the effects of burning and poison on the concrete walls, even years after the camps were liberated. It was hard to picture how lives could be taken with such harshness, without thought for the value of human life. Yet, the Lord promises:

“I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.” —Isaiah 49:15b–16a

As our tour guide led us through the grounds, he shared the brutality of treatment towards the Jews and we walked the short distance from Auschwitz to Birkenau, and as we were walking, I was imagining myself in their shoes—not that I could ever imagine how it really was, but I realized that in their exhausted and starved state, that was a far walk for them to march. Only to find out, they'd rather go back to Auschwitz because of the severity of Birkenau and the columns of gas chamber after gas chamber. Since the war ended, many have been destroyed, but few remain, including the bunkers in which they slept, and bunkers in which they ate, etc.

In one of these bunkers, there was a handprint on the oven, and I don't know the story behind it, but it potentially shows the suffering and resistance some had to the commands of the soldiers. In another, there were rows of holes for elimination, and they were given five seconds two times a day, and if they didn't make it, they were punished. In the bunker where they slept, there were two rows of bunk beds, but they crammed 300 people in each room, leaving little to no breathing room. Some were sent to gas chambers immediately upon arrival, which is so mind-blowing to think about. In Birkenau, there remains rubble from the destruction of one of the gas chambers. There also lay four headstones, without names, just the gender of the person who died. Why there are only four, I don't know, but they sit right next to the gas chamber ruins in Birkenau.

This day instilled in me an even greater love for the Jewish people and a greater yearning for them to be saved. I realized that many who didn't survive the camps didn't know the Lord. It breaks my heart to see how so many were brutally killed, and on the other hand, it breaks my heart even more they didn't all know Him. How important it is to continue reaching the Jewish people, and telling them about their Messiah! 

And, through it all, the Lord is faithful to His people. He has preserved a remnant—a remnant we are to reach. A remnant that yet needs to hear the Good News of His salvation. A remnant that will one day declare, “Baruch haba b'shem Adonai!” (“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” [cf. Matthew 23:37–39]). 

This experience is one I'll never forget and I pray its history will never be repeated nor forgotten. There's a lot more that could be said about this trip and the topic of the Holocaust, but for now, may the Lord bless and keep each of you, my friends (cf. Numbers 6:24–26).

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“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the worldly forces of this darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” —Ephesians 6:12