Motives for the Holocaust - Vol 1 No 11

"I would never sit by and let murder go on without resisting it!" vehemently protested a young man. "Oh, but you do," Mike said gently.

What Made Them Want To Do This?

One of the recurring themes for discussion in the class on the Holocaust has been exploring the motivation of the German leadership and the "gemeines volk" or common man. (Yes! Volkswagen was the auto for the "common man!")  How did Hitler and his sycophants get so many people to become murderers or at the least be those who would overlook, downplay or tolerate murder of men, women and children?  Class discussion becomes very animated during these times.  

One author that was read and discussed believed the motivation was self-interest manifested as jealousy and greed.  The Jews were generally good at business and had accumulated much wealth and subsequently, much power in economic circles, much of which is because they practiced biblical economics. These self-interested Germans would have been motivated by jealousy, covetousness, and resentment for the "blessing" that the Jews enjoyed and, in this self-interest, capitalized on the opportunity to take from them.

Another author focused on the idealism of having a "pure" race.  Purity, by their definition, meaning those who are white, of Aryan blood, strong and smart.  Hitler and his cronies having read, studied and appreciated the eugenics of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, devalued the Jews and others as substandard specimens and by their very existence, as tainting the race.  Their reproduction was harmful to the overall good of the masses and for the "greater good" had to be eliminated.  As the class shot opinions back and forth, there was a general observation that Mike made.  NONE of them for a moment thought THEMSELVES capable of doing this.

The redwood in your own eye

Mike raised his hand.  "May I ask a question?  As I listen to you here, I get the impression that none of you think yourselves capable of doing what Hitler did?"

They were aghast, even offended.

  "What!  Are you saying you think we could be Hitler!  He was a monster!"

"Yes, he was," Mike agreed.  "So what about those who lived down the street from the concentration camps watching the truckloads of men, women and children go by, knowing they were going to their deaths at the hands of their countrymen.  Could you do that?"

"No way!"  There was unanimous agreement. "I would never sit by let murder go on without resisting it!" vehemently protested a young man.

"Oh, but you do," Mike said gently.

The class quieted.

"Every one of us goes about business as usual every day when right down the street children are taken into the abortion clinics and systematically exterminated.  Hitler killed his six million but we...we...just in America, have killed our sixty-one million!"

As they say... "All hell broke loose."

  "You can't say those are the same thing!" cried one woman.  "It is NOT the same thing."

People were shouting various things across the classroom, some agreeing, some against.

What's the difference?

"What is different about the situations?" Mike calmly called out above the fray.

They quieted a little.  

"I say they are the same!  First, they are deemed as LESS THAN I am, the way the Jews were declared as "less than," and then in self-interest they are murdered.  And as regards "purification" the abortion rate of non-white children in 2019 is double that of white children.  Sounds like the "undesirables" and "vermin"  Margaret Sanger wrote about are being exterminated!  Sounds the same to me!  And aren't we just letting it happen?  What makes it different?"

The class went wild.  The professor actually backed against the board, sat down, and watched.

There were more pro-life people than Mike expected.  One pulled out his phone with a picture of his baby and wildly thrust it towards the rest of the class waving it fiercely.  "This is my new baby!  What's the difference?  Would you kill him?"  

"It's not the same!  It's not the same!"  was heard throughout the room.

Finally the professor, stood up and quieted the class.  "This is good," he began.  "We need to talk about these things, so next class we will discuss the differences.  Come prepared to talk about this in a good way."     

When the next class rolled around, Mike was prepared...

"Evacuation"     

When they arrived back at class several days later, the professor did not immediately bring up the previous conversation.  Instead, the class watched Conspiracy, a documentary movie about the Wannsee Conference of 1942, where the major players in Hitler's regime coordinated the means for the systematic annihilation of millions of Jews on an industrial scale.  This group of high-ranking Nazi officials met and calmly discussed the logistics of the "Final Solution," the elimination of Jews from Germany and ultimately, the world. They were there to synchronize the resources to "solve the Jewish problem."  One particular scene was quite cogent, when Lt. General Heydrich, the leader, praised Major Langer for the "evacuation" of 35,000 Jews in Latvia.  The Major interrupted wanting to assure that Heydrich understood that those Jews had not been moved to another location, but that he had had them shot to death.  Heydrich, with a wry smile, repeated that he understood that they had been "evacuated" and that that is the term that they were to use.  Major Langer told him that he wanted to be sure to use the approved language for what they were doing and repeated then that he had "evacuated" the tens of thousands of Jews and would use that term in his reports to the Reich. 

When the movie ended, Mike's hand shot up.  

The professor nodded towards him and Mike said, "Isn't it interesting that Heydrich wanted the term for the systematic extermination of the Jews to be 'evacuation?' The Jews were 'evacuated.'  In America when an abortion is done, they use the exact same language!  They 'evacuate' the uterus!  And instead of using bullets, they evacuate using suction or dilation and curettage.  When they 'evacuate the womb,' the abortionist systematically burns, tears or dismembers the child.  They use the exact same language for the exact same action!"

"It's not the same thing!"  several retorted vehemently.

One girl said, "I personally believe that abortion is the killing of a human, but I have friends who don't believe that, and they have their truth and I have mine.  I allow them their truth, and they allow me mine so that we get along." 

Mike retorted, "And when you adopt their 'truth,' which is really a falsehood, what you end up with is either a dead baby or if you were applying this same philosophy in Nazi Germany, a dead Jew, both bearing the image of God." 

The professor asked, "You keep referring to the 'image of God' when we have these discussions.  What do you mean by 'bearing the image of God?'"

The Image of God in Man

What an opportunity!  Since the professor asked the question, everyone was quiet and listening.  Mike began, "First of all, the Bible teaches that our value as humans is predicated on the fact that God has created man in His own image." 

The groans were audible.

One man spoke up. "I believe I was energy that converted to matter and when I die, I will convert back to energy again." Many in the class agreed.

"Then where do you get the right to make any statement about morality?" Mike querried. "Energy does not have inherent morality and neither does matter.  According to your worldview, you have no basis upon which to call anything right or wrong.   That's the road down which Darwinian Evolution takes us.  Those whom we deem "lesser" or not as evolved as we are, are able to be labeled vermin and then exterminated.  That was Hitler's view.  He was being consistent!  I can say with certainty that Hitler and his thugs were evil and immoral."

"What gives you the right to make that moral judgment?" one shot back.

"The Bible says that I am made in the image of God, like you.  The Bible says all humanity bears the image of God and thus has value.  God created man such that aspects of His character were given to humans that were not given to the animals.  

One is that He is eternal, and so He gave us souls that will never die. Our bodies will die and return to dust, but we each have a moral soul that will never die and will give an account to Him Who made us. He gave us knowledge, reason, a moral conscience, and the ability to speak and communicate as a reflection of these attributes that are present in Him.  Our value comes from Him alone, that we bear His image, reflections of His character.  So God says that when you kill another human, you are attacking His image in them, and He punishes those who do so.  So you see, every human has inherent value, no matter what his social class, genetic make-up or economic achievements, simply because he is human and an image bearer."

"I've never heard that," said his professor.

Mike said, "If Hitler had listened to the Bible properly taught, instead of Margaret Sanger and her twisted book on Eugenics, he would have treated the Jews very differently.  Whether he liked them or not, he would have understood that they were created in God's image and therefore, were valuable.  Ideas have consequences."

Many of the students talked with Mike about this after class and at other times afterwards.  This idea of being made in the image of God was new to most of them.

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