“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven … a time to be silent and a time to speak”
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7
I’ve often wondered what I would have done if I had lived through the horrific years of Nazi occupation in Europe. Would I have had the courage to speak out against the persecution of Jews? Would I have joined a resistance movement or risked hiding Jews in my home like Corrie Ten Boom’s family did? Their courage led to their imprisonment in a concentration camp where Corrie’s father and her sister Betsy died. Corrie tells their story in her autobiography “The Hiding Place.”
I’ve researched and written two novels that are set in those perilous times of Nazi rule. I’ve read dozens of first-person accounts of heroic Christians—ordinary, everyday people like you and me—who decided to take a stand at the risk of their own lives. Many of those heroes, such as Diet Eman’s fiancé, Hein, did not survive. She tells how they rescued Jews in her book “Things We Couldn’t Say.” I once had the privilege of hearing Diet Eman speak, and she said, “If you had been there, you would have done the same thing.” I wonder.
In my novel “Chasing Shadows,” set in the Netherlands, I used true accounts of Nazi atrocities and the people who resisted them, gathered from survivors’ memoirs. In “Long Way Home” I told the true story of the S.S. St. Louis, which sailed from Germany in May, 1939 with 900 Jewish passengers who were desperate to escape Nazi persecution. They had purchased landing permits for Havana, Cuba, but when they arrived, the Cuban authorities refused to honor the permits. Neither the United States nor Canada would take in the refugees. Few people in the U.S. spoke up for them. Again, I wonder what I would have done. In the end, the ship returned to Europe, putting the Jews in Nazi hands once again. We all know how that ended.
After World War II and the deaths of 6 million Jews, there was a worldwide outcry to allow the Jews to resettle in their homeland, Israel. Those Jews who had managed to survive the holocaust had nowhere else to go. Many of their homes had been looted and stolen, and many of their former neighbors had been complicit in handing them over to the Nazis. So, they made Israel their new home. The day after the United Nations declared Israel a nation, their surrounding neighbors declared war.
Seventy-five years after the Nazis were defeated, anti-Semitism is still alive and growing in the world. I’ve heard people say that this current war in Israel is a political issue, but I believe it is much more than that. How else can the long succession of hatred and persecution of Jews throughout the centuries be explained? I think of Haman. Herod. Hitler. And now Hamas and Hezbollah. Political aims can never justify the terrorizing and slaughter of innocent Jewish men, women, and children. It’s time to stand up and speak out.
I’ve asked my Jewish friends what Christians can do. Here is their response:
“Gather in your churches and pray for Israel and for Jewish communities. Post about it. Voice support for Israel. We need to see Corrie Ten Booms.”
“This is the time for all Christians to stand up for the Jewish people. Speak to your mayor, speak to any leaders that you know in your community and encourage them to pray and reach out to the Jewish communities.”
“Let us see and hear from Christian communities that they care and are praying for us.”
Psalm 94 pleads:
“Rise up, O judge of the earth . . . How long will the wicked, O Lord, how long will the wicked be jubilant?”
Then it asks God’s people this question:
“Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?”
Here I am, Lord. I want to use my platform as a bestselling author to take a stand and speak up.
