I remember looking at various photographs from the Holocaust. In the pictures it wasn’t the victims that caught my eye but the guards. They didn’t look like monsters, but like normal people. People who would play ball with their sons or take their spouses to a restaurant for an evening. They looked like normal people, and that made my blood run cold because I realized they were normal people.

We often judge the Germans for their failure to stand up and say no. But wouldn’t we do the same of just going along to get along. I heard a podcast talk about how at the first when ordered to commit atrocities, many of the German soldiers refused, saying they were civilized men, but a year later these same men were tossing babies in the air and spiking them on bayonets.

Some will claim it was only them and say we should hold them and their people guilty of that blood. But if blood guilt does exist, then all people are guilty.

We must look into our own souls and ask, “If I were in a totalitarian state what would I do? Knowing that to oppose the government could not only cause my death but the death of my family as well. What would I do? Would I not do as I’m told and join in the crimes?”

We must all pray that we never have to be in such a predicament. For I know that when I look at those death camp guards, truly but for grace of God go I.

#Holocaust, #GraceOfGod