Mt. Carmel Moments: Lest We Forget

Over the years I've heard many stories of WWII and the Holocaust. After all, my dad landed on Normandy the day after D Day and lived through Europe serving as a medic in the army and bringing home an impressive seven battle stars. How I wish that I had appreciated that more ask a child and asked so many questions! He died at the age of 50, a delayed war death according to our doctor. Now I would love to know all that he saw and what he thought about so many things. When we meet in heaven someday, I will have so much to ask!

I've had the opportunity to study the Holocaust, read the stories of people like Ann Frank and Corrie Ten Boom and even climb into the Hiding place in the Ten Boom family home in Harleem, the Netherlands as well as visiting Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria.

However, in last week I did two things that have once again impressed on me the need, now more than ever, to make sure that the events of the Holocaust are never forgotten. I read a book that rivals the Hiding Place as a must read. The book is "The Journey" by Myrna Grant and, though out of print, can still be acquired, used, on Amazon. It is about the life of Rose Warmer, a Jew who, after a tumultuous life, became a Chrisitan believer and went to the camps with her fellow Jews to minister and witness to them. She survived the war, but at a terrible toll to her health, and ended her years here in Haifa doing what she felt so compelled to do, sharing Yeshua Meschiah with her fellow Jews. Many of our friends at Bethesda Assembly knew her and that is where we first heard her story.

The second thing that I did was visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. I had been before but Gary had not, so we went and spent a considerable amount of Wednesday there. Pictures are not allowed inside the museum or I would show you a many of the tragic things that we saw. It is not an easy visit, but the pictures and recording of first hand accounts as well as areas like the memorial to the millions and a half children and babies that died and the hall of records of the names of the dead, least we forget them, serve to strengthen my resolve that this is a part of history that we must not forget and cannot ever be denied!

No other race in history has endured such methodic and vicious attempts to totally annihilate it. This alone should reaffirm our belief that God has a plan for our redemption and that plan is through the people of the Book, the Jews. They are not a perfect people, but they are His agent of redemption of the world. He sent His Son to pay the price for our sins through them and He will also bring about the end of the Ages through them. May we never forget and continue to pray for Israel and her people!