The world is staggering under the weight of billions of bad decisions — bad decisions by regular citizens and by the world’s leaders. Of those choices, one stands out as particularly dangerous — the decision to blame Jews for humanity’s problems. We have seen where this decision leads. The Nazis took it to a place they called Endlösung. In English, that means, “The Final Solution.”
Adolf Hitler built his whole sorry career on extreme hatred of Jews. In his book, Mein Kempf, he blamed Jews for mankind’s worst evils. He spoke of “the Jewish question” as a primary problem for humanity — a problem he could solve. His solution was simple. In 1922, three years before Mein Kempf, Hitler told a journalist, “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.”
Of course, no one believed him. He said it, but if his voice entered the consciousness of most people at all, it did so as something of an oddity from the outer fringe. At first, no one thought he would gain power. When he did, they assumed his power would be checked by more moderate forces. He abused Jews from the beginning, but that abuse did not start with “annihilation.” He did not pull the trigger on his plan to exterminate Jews until December 12, 1941 — one day after declaring war on the United States. On that day, Hitler held a secret meeting with 50 Nazi officials, including their Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.
There are no official minutes from the meeting, but in his journal, Goebbels wrote, “With respect of the Jewish Question, the Führer has decided to make a clean sweep. He prophesied to the Jews that if they again brought about a world war, they would live to see their annihilation in it. That wasn’t just a catchword.… If the German people have now again sacrificed 160,000 dead on the eastern front, then those responsible for this bloody conflict will have to pay with their lives.”
Hitler had decided to exterminate an entire people, to engage in actual genocide. The Nazis called it the final solution. We call it the Holocaust. They decided to rid Europe of Jews by murdering them. Germany was a modern nation filled with intelligent, educated people. They were children of the Enlightenment. They weren’t so different from us.
That point was brought home to me again in the last few days when I saw a sign that featured a large Palestinian flag and a small Israeli flag beside the words, “Final Solution.” This was not in some faraway land. It was at George Washington University. That sign is a clear and obvious reference to the Holocaust — a call for the destruction, not just of Israel, but of all Jews.
What happened in Germany eight decades ago started as something small and from the fringe of society. This time it has spread to the whole world. Jewish students at American universities are being bullied and belittled; threatened and injured. They are not alone. It is a worldwide phenomenon.
How far will it go? The Bible teaches that hatred of Jews will be a feature of the last days. I had hoped it would be a post-rapture phenomenon — that the Church would be morally strong enough to hold back this evil as long as the Church stays on earth. It still could. The next few days and weeks will tell quite the story.
