Today is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – the most notorious of the Nazi concentration/death camps. The survivors of the Holocaust are fewer and fewer with each passing year. Yet the legacy of their witness is that we must never forget what happened during that horrific time in human history. There is no answer to explain or justify the Holocaust. Yet it could not have happened if a supposedly civilized and Christian nation actually believed the Biblical truth that all people are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). As Jewish people and other targeted minorities were the focus of slander and propaganda, they were eventually dehumanized to the point that their extermination became an otherwise unimaginable policy. The result was the murder of over 9 million innocent people including over 6 million Jewish men, women, and children. Those numbers are mind numbing unless we pause to consider each one was a person of infinite worth made in the image of God. I took the pictures posted below at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. The wall of pictures gives a glimpse into the enormity of the atrocity. Each picture makes this atrocity personal. Seventy five year later, a major lesson from for our time is to never forget the image of God in each person regardless of race, economic status, political perspective, gender, or sexual orientation. That sounds simple, but we are living in a nation where divisions among people and stereotypes of the “other” are growing and deepening. For those of us who worship the God of the Bible, being made in the image of God is the fundamental truth of human existence. Never forget.
