Never Again - No, Never Again! By Jan Markell

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Never Again - No, Never Again!


By Jan Markell

Yom HaShoah is the annual day to remember the slain six million Jews who perished under the crush of the Third Reich. This year the date falls on April 21. More than Jews perished. Hitler wanted to do away with his enemies and anyone who didn't have blue eyes and blond hair. During the Carter administration, America officially recognized this important day as well. Many non-Jews attend memorial services in their area.

Let me take you to Israel for just a moment and relate the scenario on Yom HaShoah. The land literally comes to a halt, at least for two minutes! At precisely 8 AM each year, a two-minute siren is sounded throughout the land. Everyone in Israel freezes in their tracks. Rowdy teens grind to a halt. Children climb off their toys and stand at attention next to teachers or parents. All vehicles stop, forming a line of paralyzed transportation. Many drivers stand by their cars and trucks in solemn silence.

Some say the two minutes seems like eternity. In their hearts, every Jew in Israel is saying, "Never again; no never again!" But now Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he plans on doing it again! He'd also like to perpetrate a Holocaust on Americans.

There is something unprecedented about the European Holocaust. For the first time in the bloodstained history of the human race, a decision was birthed in a modern state, in the midst of a civilized continent, to track down, register, mark, isolate, dispossess, humiliate, concentrate, transport, and murder every single person of an ethnic group as defined by the perpetrators --and for purely ideological reasons.

This was targeted at an ethnic group who so generously contributed to the culture of the world; to a people who have borne the brunt of enmity towards them basically because they dared to be different and dared to insist on their difference. To the Christian, another perspective enters, for our Messiah, Jesus, was a Jew.

Israel doesn't want the world to forget, nor do they want us to buy into the devilish lies of "historical revisionists" who insist it either didn't happen or that the number of six million is grossly exaggerated. They believe that what mankind forgets, he tends to repeat.

Israel has memorialized the Gentiles who helped them during WWII, and particularly at Yad Vashem, the memorial to the Holocaust in Israel. There were many Corrie ten Booms but not all the stories became public.

In 1979 I wrote a true story of Holocaust survivor Anita Dittman. It is ironic that back then both Bethany House and Tyndale House were vying for the manuscript. Today the major publishing houses have no interest in this kind of inspiration, truth, and history, and I am thankful that Lighthouse Trails polished up the book's image in 2005 and republished it. It is now titled Trapped in Hitler's Hell. It will change your life if you will read it, and I am not trying to make a sale. Anita's story has been read or heard by tens of thousands and all would say their life was impacted in some way. God's protective hand on Anita and her mother in Nazi Germany, in the concentration camps, in the escape, and many more scenarios, is gripping. Readers will never forget the story.

Anita lived in a Romans 8:28 world. No matter what atrocity she faced, she claimed that "all things worked together for good." That plays out in every chapter. She spread her supernatural faith amidst disorganized chaos almost daily. Anita and her mother were Jewish believers.

Show your love for the Jewish people by participating in local Yom HaShoah activity. Many who went along with Hitler were members of a church. Some were pastors who put Hitler's picture in place of a cross. The Nazis had a cross on the belts or one was worn around their neck. These images have kept deep wounds in the hearts of Jews for 70 years.

They would love to hear you say, "Never again!" as well.