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SHOAH....HOLOCAUST AWARENESS
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TESTIMONIES
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I Escaped From The Nazis
by Rachmiel Frydland
It was on the 28th of August 1939 that I came to know the possibility of war. I decided to stay in Warsaw. Supplies soon ran low and from September lst there was nothing to buy. Other young Hebrew Christians and myself lived on what little we had for ten days. Then we were called up to help defend Warsaw.
Three of us went and were accepted. As I did not want to shoot, I asked for physical work and received it. They were hard days. Though we were near the front and were being bombarded day and night, we all survived. One of us was seriously injured, but recovered after a few weeks in the hospital.
THE GERMANS ARRIVE
The Germans entered Warsaw toward the end of September, and soon there was famine in the city. One of the Hebrew Christians stood in the line to receive some hot soup which the German Army was distributing to the hungry Polish population in Warsaw, but he was recognized to be Jewish, was beaten up and thrown out of the line hungry. I decided to leave for a village near Plock, which meant 75 miles on foot. Jews were not permitted to use any public conveyances. As I was leaving Warsaw the Germans stopped me. One looked me straight in the face and said with a rough voice: "Are you a Jew?" I did not answer him. Upon this he hit me and pushed me to the other side of the road, where I was handed a spade and had to work with all my strength, though I had nothing to eat all day.
Toward the evening they took us to a camp where I sat down and wept. I do not really know why. Some Jews tried to comfort me, so I wiped my tears away and told them of my faith. A little later I felt moved to leave the camp and in the sight of all I did so. No one challenged me.
I went on my way and slept in the open. The next day I found something to buy; great was my joy when I went into a shop and found that there was bread on sale there. How fresh and appetizing it was! After three days I reached Plock and was received by the brethren with open arms.
TRIUMPHANT FAITH
In the summer of 1940,er of 1940 I was going from our village to Chelm. On the way some drunken German soldiers fell on me and beat me with a stick until I fell senseless. They left me, and with my last powers I dragged myself, bleeding, to Chelm. The doctor said he did not know whether I would recover, as my wounds were probably infected and I might die of blood-poisoning. To his great surprise I recovered after a week, though I suffered a lot and could not eat for some time, for when I did, I vomited blood.
I earned my living by working from time to time for farmers. At first I had not much work, but soon I became known as an honest worker. Then, except on Sundays, I was kept working hard at every kind of farm work from sunrise to sunset and had no time for spiritual things. Oh! if I could only have foreseen what would happen, surely I would not have eaten or worked but would have done something to help those that were to pass through such misery.
GOD STRONGER THAN MAN
In the winter of 1941-42 there was not much work on the farms. The bigger cities had Ghettoes where a certain slum district in the town was given up to the Jews and surrounded by a wall and barbed wire. We in the villages were forbidden to leave the village on pain of death. However, many times I risked my life for my parents to go to the nearby town and bring home the necessities for our lives. Being so faithful to them, my mother first got interested and began to read my Yiddish New Testament secretly. The Jews in the surrounding villages respected my faith and witness.
THE GAS CHAMBERS
It was the time when train load after train load of Jews were being taken to the gas chambers and crematoria only about twelve miles from our village. We knew what awaited us. In danger of death I went from time to time on Sundays to Chelm to have communion with the brethren there. I spent a few months in a slave labor camp working hard, but this gave me a chance to witness to Jews there.
On August 30th, 1942, I received the order to go to the gas chambers. I did not go, but stayed at home and awaited the mercy of the Lord. On September 24th the village mayor came and told me, while I was at work (helping one of the peasants cutting wood), that he had received orders to hand me over to the Gestapo. He gave me permission to say good-bye to my parents who were in tears, especially my mother. The man who led me had pity on me and hinted that I should escape. I did so and fled to the woods. My sister was in hiding in the village, but my parents went when they were called to go.
At this time two Jewesses joined us; they had escaped from the train that was taking them to a death camp. Then three young Jews joined us in the woods. They shared with us in the reading of the Bible, in song and praise.
SNOW AND DEATH
On November 24th our fortunes changed. My sister, who was in the village, was killed. We hid ourselves in the high grass that grew in the wood. They discovered and took away all our food, but our lives were spared. That night heavy snow fell some three feet deep. We had to go and get some food. Alas! when we reached the road leading to the village, the police were there. What were we to do? There were shouts of "Stop! stop!" and shots. For quite a time I did not know what I was doing and where I was running, nor what was happening. I did not think; I just ran and ran as shots whistled over my head and around my ears.
At last there was silence; no one was pursuing me any longer. I flopped on to a tree trunk; I could neither speak or pray. My sweat chilled me. I gathered some sticks, made a fire and gradually recovered my senses. No one was near to comfort me; only the flame of my little fire broke the darkness around. My whole being seemed to cry aloud, "Why are we so persecuted?" The coming of morning brought no news, but I was convinced that my companions lived no more. What was there left for me? I would have sought the police that they might kill me too, but I had not yet recovered enough strength to go and find them.
But there still remained the Lord, the same yesterday and today. He began to speak to me with His soft voice. "You have enough of My grace. Had not job enough; had not Paul enough?" I became silent to hear what the Lord had to say to me, and He said much. For a time I continued to weep, but then the victory! I stayed where I was and decided to live as long as the Lord would allow me to live and work for Him. I said, "If I am not necessary to God, surely He would have taken me away; but if God wants me to live for Him, should I not bow to His almighty will?" I bowed my knees and was cured. There I was, alone in this cruel world, alone in those woods with the wild goats and swine. I could no longer stay there. but there or elsewhere I was not alone, for He had promised to be with me always; how true this became to me, especially in those days when it seemed that no one remained.
LIFE SPARED
I started on my way to Warsaw but was caught. I was not killed but put into a camp where there were some 5,000 Jews. I was there eight days but not in vain. Some believed my testimony and I soon had a circle of sympathizers. At the end of the eight days the camp was surrounded by black uniformed S.S. guards armed with machine guns, but God led me out, for I jumped over the well from which both the peasants and the Camp drew water.
Once again I tried to go to Warsaw. This time I got to Chelm safely; here brethren helped me to get a railway ticket for Warsaw. I arrived there on December 20th, 1942. I returned to Chelm for Christmas, but was caught again on Christmas Day as I was going from our village to Chelm. Approaching the town, I stopped and told my captor that I was not going to move until I prayed. His protests and threats had no effect on me as I knew that only a few hundred yards further were the Gestapo quarters. I knelt and prayed, yielding my life to God. When I arose my captor began to talk to me softly and finally let me go free. I returned to Warsaw, where I stayed awaiting the Grace of God.
THE WARSAW GHETTO
From time to time I went around the walls of the ghetto thinking of the possibility of getting inside. One of the places where I was permitted to spend a night or two in hiding was in the shop of a Christian undertaker. With another Jewish Christian boy we put chips in one of the unfinished coffins and thus spent the night. (Alas, this boy, too, was later caught and killed). Here in the spring of 1943 1 became acquainted with Jews who worked outside the Ghetto for a German firm adjacent to this Christian undertaker. As they had a special permit for ten to leave and enter the Ghetto, one Friday they took me in with them instead of the tenth who did not leave the Ghetto on that day. Thus a week before the liquidation of the Ghetto I was able to get inside for the weekend. I met some of our precious Jewish believers. They told me their miraculous stories. Some had already died of starvation or were imprison- ed and tortured to death.
Stasiek Eizenberg, a young man who accepted his Messiah immediately before the war, had received special permission for a Polish Pastor, Mr. Krakiewiczm, to enter the Ghetto and baptize him there. He was later imprisoned for being late to work and as he was awaiting death, he wrote a verse of his favorite hymn on the wall. It so happened that the German officer came in on that day and asked his Polish interpreter to translate all the inscriptions of the victims. When they came to his hymn and the officer heard the words (it was a Polish hymn translated from the German) he stopped and demanded that the one who wrote it should confess, otherwise all would be guilty. Stasiek confessed. The officer went away, but in a few hours Stasiek Eizenberg was released.
As the Jewish believers were now awaiting definite extermination, I tried to comfort them as best as I could. They insisted that I leave the Ghetto, for God who preserved me until now would keep me to the end of the war, and then I would be able to tell the Christians of those woes. I left the Ghetto and was probably one of the last to leave before the liquidation began. Time dragged on slowly. I had to learn to trust the Lord for each minute. Whether spending the night with a Christian family who risked their lives to take in a Jew for the night, or in a coffin in the shop of a Christian undertaker, or in some barn, there was the same assurance that the Lord wanted me to live and as long as He wanted it, I was ready.
FREEDOM ALAS!
Finally the hour came, and I was no more hunted and condemned to die just because I was a Jew. However my heart longed for freedom and fellowship with others who believed that Jesus was their own personal Messiah and Saviour. God granted me the desire of my heart and helped me to leave Poland and get to England. Later God opened for me the way into the USA and afterwards I went to Israel and spent four years there among my own brethren. There I married a Jewish believer in the Messiah. She also suffered under the Nazi occupation, in France. We have four children, two girls and two boys, whom we have brought up in the faith of God and the Messiah. We trust that you, too, know sins forgiven and peace in all circumstances through the Messiah of Israel, the Lord Jesus (Read Isaiah 53 and Romans 8-1 1).
Reprinted with permission of
The Messianic Literature Outreach
How about you? Have you received your Redeemer,
the Stone whom the builders rejected?
In Him is life, light and joy and in His sacrifice is forgiveness of sin.
To return to MENORAH'S HOME PAGE
6 Million Tragedy
by Rachmiel Frydland
MORE THAN FORTY years have passed since the perversity of men contrived to kill, murder, and exterminate God's chosen people, the Jews. Hitler and his associates, like Haman of old, devised a way to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women. Esther 3:13
Haman's design failed completely. Haman and his ten sons were hanged on the very day when all the Jews were to have been exterminated.
Hitler had a similar end to that of Haman, except that he committed suicide along with the cohorts who were close to him. Jewish people could have established a festival in memory of the victory over Hitler. They would only have to decide what delicacy to eat. Potato latkes are eaten on Hanukah in memory of the victory over Antiochus Epiphanes, and hamentashen on Purim in memory of Haman's downfall. Yet, there are no joyful celebrations over Hitler's defeat. On the eve of Israel's independence celebrations, there is a memorial service commemorating the six million Jews who were exterminated under the Hitler regime. There are no joyous celebrations over Hitler's defeat because about one third of the Jewish population was wiped out in the course of World War II!
THE GREATNESS OF THE TRAGEDY
There is a Jewish saying based on the Talmud: "Whosoever destroys one life in Israel is as he would destroy the whole world, and whosoever preserves one life in Israel is as he would preserve the whole world" (Talmud, Sanhedrin 38a). Since Jewish people consider tradition and Talmud to be inspired, the next step is to blame God Himself for this tragedy. This feeling is expressed in strong words by Richard L. Rubinstein in his book entitled, After Auschwitz:
How can Jews believe in an omnipotent, beneficent God after Auschwitz?
Traditional Jewish theology maintains that God is the ultimate; omnipotent actor in the
historical drama. It has interpreted every major catastrophe in Jewish history as
God's punishment of a sinful Israel. I fail to see how this position can be maintained
without regarding Hitler and the SS as instruments of God's will. The agony of
European Jewry cannot be likened to the testing of Job. To see any purpose in the
death camps, the traditional believer is forced to regard the most demonic,
antihuman explosion in all history as a meaningful expression, of God's purposes.
The idea is simply too obscene to me to accept.
THE DOUBLE TRAGEDY
Thus, the tragedy is double. First, there is the physical and mental damage that was done to those who perished and those who survived the horrible death camps. Then, there is the mental and spiritual pain of those who identify themselves with the perishing Jews of World War II.
Many of our people have failed to look into God's Word to find out what God wants to say through these fearful events. From the Hebrew Scriptures we present some of the things God says:
1. The Deceitful Heart
Here is the first thing we could learn from this tragedy. The prophet Jeremiah records in God's Word: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9. Similar words are found in the Brit Hadasha (New Testament): From whence come wars and fighting's among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? James 4:1
The liberal world, of which our people are prominent spokesmen, maintained that the world is getting better and better and soon liberal men would be able to bring about a happy world. But, they ignored God's Word which states that man's heart is wicked, deceitful, and capable of every crime and cruelty. Have we learned our lesson?
2. The Neglect of God's Word
We know that great honor belongs to the Jewish people. From them God raised lawgivers, wise men, psalmists, and prophets who presented God's Word to the world by the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit. The Brit Hadasha (New Testament) expresses it so beautifully: What advantage then hath the Jew? ... Much every way; chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. (Romans 3:1-2
While due honor is given to the Jewish people, the prophets also place upon them special responsibility as recorded in God's words through the prophet Amos: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2). Instead of heeding God's Word to instruct our sons and daughters in the living Word of God, the very Book which justifies our existence as a people and a nation, we sent them to colleges and universities to instruct them in secular topics. Our religious Jewish people send their children to the Yeshivot. There, too, they are taught the words of men, the Talmud, because it is maintained that the study of the Talmud is more important than the study of the Tanakh (Old Covenant Scriptures). As a result Christians have been translating the Hebrew Bible into hundreds of languages, while we who gave the Bible to the world are standing on the sidelines.
3. The Rejected Redeemer
In this respect also great glory belongs to the Jewish people. The following is a quotation from the writing of the great Jew, the Apostle Saul of Tarsus, later called Paul, in which he says of the Jewish people:
I say the truth in Messiah, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Messiah for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites: to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Messiah came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen Romans 9:1-5
Jesus the Messiah and Redeemer is ours; He is of our flesh and blood. We should join the Apostle in celebrating not only a simhat-torah (rejoicing of the Law) but also a continuous celebration of simhat-moshiach, as he admonishes believers in the city of Philippi: "Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice" (Philippians 4:4). Instead we are still looking for someone else. Many times we thought that "someone else" had come and we were ready to follow him, but we paid dearly for our mistakes. From the time of the false messiah Bar Kosiba, killed in 135 A.D., to Sabbatai Zvi (died 1676) and his followers, large crowds of Jewish people, sometimes even the majority, would commit their lives to encourage these so-called "messiah-heroes" who brought woe and destruction to our people. Jesus Himself foreseeing that this would happen, expressed these words:
I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not;
if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive. John 5:43
The rabbis, writing in the Talmud, knew that Messiah was to be rejected, would suffer, and die. However, instead of applying these prophecies to Jesus, they posited two Messiahs: Messiah ben Joseph to suffer, be rejected and be pierced through in accordance with the prophecies of Isaiah 53 and Zechariah 12:10, and, Messiah ben David to fight God's wars, defeat the pagans, and restore Israel. But God's Word speaks of one Messiah to be despised and rejected and then exalted.
Other Jewish people, after disappointments with false messiahs, put forth a hypothesis that Messiah is not to be a person but an ideal. For many years our people hoped that social changes in the East and the promise of full quality was the redemption of which the prophets spoke. What a great disappointment! God's Word speaks of the only person Who can claim messiahship - a man of the household of David, born in Bethlehem in a supernatural way.
THE ANSWER TO MEN’S' TRAGEDY
If the Jewish people had a prophet today or if we would heed the words of God's prophets of old, we would cry out as did Hosea: "Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for he hath torn and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up" (Hosea 6:1).
God has already started to heal us. He is beginning to bind up our wounds. With these acts of mercy and restoration, God wants to woo us again to Himself. At the same time God's Word extends to us a warning in the words of the Apostle Paul:
Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and
long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Romans 2:4
Here is the answer for us as a special people of God and for you and me as individuals. What has happened cannot be changed. God's Word says that we have failed - not God. Herein are set forth some of the mistakes we have made. Are we ready to correct them? If so, then we should acknowledge before God that we, too, have sinned, and being God's chosen people, a greater responsibility rests on us than on others. We must return to the Holy Scripture and seek the answer there. If we will sincerely seek, then it will become clear that our greatest mistake was and is that we have not accepted our own Messiah and Redeemer who still calls to us. Are you willing to receive Him?
0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how often would I have gathered thy children
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth,till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord. (Brit Hadasha, Matthew 23:37-39)
WRITE M.L.O. below for the booklet "Messiah in the TENACH." It will be sent to you free.
Reprinted with permission of The Messianic Literature Outreach
How about you? Have you received your Redeemer,
the Stone whom the builders rejected?
In Him is life, light and joy and in His sacrifice is forgiveness of sin.
To return to MENORAH'S HOME PAGE
