In January 1933, the world watched a maniac assume power in Germany.  At the time, there were roughly 9 million Jews living in Europe.  By 1945, Nazi Germany occupied almost every one of those European countries and 2/3 of European Jews were killed.  They died, not as casualties of World War II which ravaged Europe, but rather victims of deliberate and systematic annihilation by the Nazis.

History tells us that, for the most part, the world stood silently and watched as the brutal attempt to extinguish Jewish life went uncontested.  I have been to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel, and I have seen the evidence.  I have read the stories and I have watched the video testimonies of holocaust survivors.  I have touched a railcar and have seen the models of Auschwitz-Birkenau  and other death camps, and I have gasped at the carnage that is portrayed in that place.  Why….?  Why was the world silent?  Why didn’t America and her allies act more decisively?  Moreover, why didn’t the church reach out more intentionally to save God’s people?

Surely not every person in Germany agreed with Hitler’s “Final Solution.”  Surely not every citizen in countries where Jews were rounded up and sent to death camps were in favor of it.  Surely not every world leader thought Hitler’s idea was the right one.  Yet, it happened.  The silent majority did next to nothing while over 6 million Jews were slaughtered simply for being Jews.  It is disgusting!

COUNTRY	JEWS KILLED	COUNTRY	JEWS KILLED
Africa	526	Hungary	305,000
Albania	200	Italy	8,000
Austria	65,000	Latvia	85,000
Belgium	24,387	Lithuania	135,000
Czechoslovakia	277,000	Luxembourg	700
Denmark	77	Netherlands	106,000
Estonia	4,000	Norway	728
France	83,000	Poland	3,001,000
Germany	160,000	Romania	364,632
Greece	71,301	Soviet Union	1,500,000
Yugoslavia	67,122	TOTAL: 6,258,673

But as disgusting as it may be, I sense the silent majority today may be committing the same atrocious sin of doing nothing.  Why is there not an uproar today as radical Islamic regimes in Iran and elsewhere threaten to annihilate Israel?  Why do we insist on negotiating with evil tyrants who openly proclaim their goal of wiping Israel off the map?  Why is the US and her allies refusing to take very definitive steps to neutralize Iran’s nuclear threat before it is too late?

While politicians and others tell us that Islam is a religion of peace and that most Muslims simply want to live in peace, it makes no difference!  Just as a fanatic came to power in Germany in 1933 (when Germans simply wanted to live in peace), so fanatics are in power throughout many nations in the Middle East.  True, some Muslims do simply want to live in peace, but it is the fanatics waging war on Israel and her allies today.  The peaceful majority are as irrelevant today as the peaceful majority in Hitler’s day, or in the days of Communist Russia or China.  Moreover, the peaceful majority of Christians seems to be silent, either incapable or unwilling to speak up or to act decisively, and it may soon be too late!

But dear friends, I saw something else at Yad Vashem that brings hope.  As of 2013, Yad Vashem has recognized 24,811 “Righteous Among the Nations.”  Non-Jewish men and women from 47 different countries have been recognized for their cooperation in saving thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.  Trees and monuments on the grounds of Yad Vashem honor the righteous.  There is also a children’s memorial to the 1.5 million Jewish children lost in the holocaust.  Just outside the children’s memorial is this statue, honoring a pediatrician who vowed that, if the children were taken away to death, he would go with them.

Fellow Christians, it is our call and our privilege to be counted by God as “Righteous Among the Nations” as we pray for, speak up for, and fight for the well-being of Israel.  Let’s not allow history to repeat itself on our watch!

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen;
All day and all night they will never keep silent.
You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves;
And give Him no rest until He establishes
And makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth!
~Isaiah 62:6-7

 (Photography is not allowed inside Yad Vashem, so I have no pictures to post.  However, for glimpses inside the museum, please visit the Yad Vashem Museum website.)