Three Red Roses

December 2008

by Sally Klein O'Connor

The first time I stood inside the entrance of what was once known as the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, it was October of 2007. In that place a million and a half people—mostly Jews—were “exterminated.” As I looked out through the gate, I noticed a group of houses staring at me. Maybe two city blocks away, they sat on their cold foundations facing me without apology. I looked back at them, amazed. Windows, curtains, and colors—how could anyone live so close to such a place as Birkenau? Why would anyone choose to live next to a “killing field?”

In August of this year, I traveled again to Poland. I went to Birkenau for a conference that had as its theme, “From holocaust to Living Hope.” While I was there I witnessed a profound exchange. The son of an SS officer—now a born again believer in Chris—washed the feet of a Jewish believer by the tracks, inside Birkenau, as he asked forgiveness for the sins of his father and of his nation. I watched as they hugged each other in complete acceptance of one another, and together, they raised the communion cups, blessing the wine and blessing us. As David says in the Psalms, “How good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in peace.” But when I walked back through the gate at Birkenau to leave, once again I saw the houses. I could not get past the idea that people would choose to raise families in such a place as this…

When the conference ended I moved out of my little room at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer, and stayed with Karen, who had been translating for some of the speakers. We made a connection some weeks before I came out for the conference, and now we were talking through some ideas I had been mulling over.

During the conference I had a dream of red roses and, as strange as it sounds, I felt I was supposed to give them to someone but I didn’t know who. Last year when my friend Evi and I wandered through Birkenau I noticed bouquets of red roses on the tracks and by the crematoriums. Roses for the dead. And it struck me then: What if in this place we gave roses to the living?

Now, a year later, it occurred to me I could give roses to some of those people living in the houses near Birkenau. We had borrowed bikes to ride out to the camp and I told Karen I needed some time to walk through Birkenau again. I asked her if she would purchase three long-stemmed red roses and three blank greeting cards.

Birkenau is a mixture of the holy and profane. There is a deep stillness in the place, even when there are hundreds of people walking around. The ground bears silent witness to the ongoing history of sin, and the evil which human beings are capable of committing. It is a reminder of the depravity of man. But even as I am aware of the evil that created such a place, I cannot ignore that each time I have stood within that encampment, I have also felt the powerful stillness of God’s presence, as if He Himself watches over this place.

As I sat outside the entrance waiting for Karen to return with the roses I started to think about what I should say in these cards. My thoughts wandered, twisting around each other, then I asked the Lord what to write. This is what He showed me:

A Rose of Remembrance

Red for the blood of the people who died here

Red for the Savior’s blood which was shed for the blood of my people and your people

Red for His love which makes love between our people possible

Karen wrote it out in Polish, including the envelope which said, “Because of love.”

So we ventured over to three houses. Something I didn't find out until afterwards, was that Birkenau is not actually in Oswiecim. It is in another smaller town, which has a reputation for being anti-semitic.

The first man was drinking a beer in his front yard which looked out directly on the entrance to Birkenau We approached, somewhat gingerly. I said, “Hallo! I’m from America and I’m Jewish and I want to give this to you,” I handed him the rose and the card as Karen translated for me. His face lit up. He was very surprised and said nothing like that had ever happened to him before. Then he told us how he had lived there for the last 40 years. He must have been in his fifties or early sixties. He recounted seeing Jewish people parking their cars, walking past his house to go to Birkenau over the years. Their cars were parked everywhere and so many people walking past his house to go see this place. But he said it wasn't an issue. He told us some of his history and then he showed us his flowers and garden, and he let me take his picture. He must have spoken to us for about 20 minutes. I honestly didn’t think Polish men talked that much! I think, in retrospect, we might have made him a little nervous, but he was right, it was not exactly an everyday occurrence.

The second man was building his house. It looked like it was finished on the outside but he still had a lot of work to do on the inside. He was a big guy, maybe in his forties, and Karen didn't think at first it would be appropriate to give him the card and flower because it seemed as if he hadn't lived there very long. But as we talked with him he told us that his family all lived in the tiny shack of a house on the lot next to his new house. I went off to get one of the roses and my card for him. While I was gone he told Karen, for 17 years he had tried to get a permit to build a new house for his family on their land. And, in fact, he had not been given back all of his land, though he had received a small compensation. As I rounded the corner with a rose in one hand and a card in the other he told Karen, it was because of the Jews, though he also said he didn't hold it against them. Not knowing a word of Polish I had no clue as I handed him the rose and card and introduced myself. Isn't God funny? Timing is everything.

He was quite open with his feelings, and after a while he asked me why I thought it should be such a big deal for him to get his land back and be able to build. I told him that I was only now beginning to understand why he might feel that way. I explained that I had been thinking for some time about the people who had houses so near the camp, and wondering why anyone would want to live near such a place. It didn't seem right to me. “After all,” I said, “this is not a graveyard or a cemetery. This was a massacre.” I told him that for us, as Jews, this was a hard place to look at. It was a place to remember death--a very painful and difficult place for us--and that was why it was hard to imagine anyone wanting to live near it. I guess he hadn't considered my viewpoint, just as I hadn't considered his. I then told him that not only was I Jewish, but I was also believed in Jesus and that maybe people living here could be considered a redeeming act, like Spring coming after a very long winter--life after death. He agreed. Then, without thinking, I picked up one of the stones from his walkway, a token of his new home, and blessed him saying, "May the Lord bless your house and all who live there and may it be a place of joy!"

At we approached the last house there was an older man in his sixties or seventies, trying to fix his car. He didn't want to be bothered at first and Karen thought he was looking at us pretty suspiciously. But when I told him I was Jewish and from America, and I wanted to give him a gift and extended the rose to him, he seemed really shocked. I thought he might cry. At first, he didn't want to accept it. He wanted me to give it to his wife, but I insisted it was for him and he received it with some reluctance. Then he went and got his wife. She read the card and was very moved! She walked us over to where the tracks from Birkenau crossed next to their land and asked me to pray for her. And with Karen’s help, I did.

“Never Again” is what the Jewish memorial reads at Dachau. Two words. They are both an epitaph to what will always be a shameful piece of human history, and a somber warning to future generations. And yet, in the sixty plus years since the victory and liberation of 1945, how has the world responded to those words?

In Poland, immediately after the war, violence broke out in some of the villages. Jewish survivors returned home to find some of their former friends and neighbors had become their enemies, stealing, killing, destroying Jewish property and people. In the Soviet Union anti-semitism continued unchecked. Years later, in Rwanda, one tribe of people wiped out a million of another. The Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland have been at it for centuries, the Crips and the Bloods in our inner cities, and so many more besides. Bloodshed and violence between people continues, unabated. And I can’t help but wonder how futile are those words by themselves? It seems to me as long as people live on the face of the earth bloodshed and violence will continue. On some level it is simply the legacy of sin. That many of us want it to stop is admirable. But what is accomplished by stating what so obviously seems, on a world-wide scale, impossible? Isn’t there something more than building monuments to massacres in the hope that we won’t do it again?

Recently I had a conversation with a woman named Eva Kor. She is one of the few remaining survivors of Auschwitz. She lost all her family except her twin sister. She and her twin became experiments of Dr. Mengele, who permanently blocked her sister’s kidney from maturing with the rest of her body. After they were liberated in 1945 they moved to Israel. Eva’s sister remained there and Eva came to the states. Years later Eva set out on a quest to try and help her sister. She wanted to find out if Mengele had made any notes on his experiments with children, and so she could discover what he did to her sister’s kidney, so that it might be reversed. In the process, she met Dr. Hans Munch, an ex-Nazi camp doctor who was acquitted because it was discovered he had been trying to help the Jews survive in the concentration camps. Meeting Dr. Munch was an eye-opening experience for Eva Kor.

She discovered he was human.

Who could blame her? Who could blame any Jewish person affected by the holocaust--and on some level that was all of us--for the holocaust coloring our view of every German we ever met? Can people still be human and do such horrific things to each other? The answer, unfortunately, is “Yes.”

But when Eva Kor traveled back to Germany and met Dr. Munch she discovered he was not a monster but a “mensch” (a real human being) with some of the most profound regret any human has ever carried around in his soul. It was a wonder to her. He agreed to sign a paper saying he witnessed the use of gas for killing people in the camps. He signed the paper in the presence of several other survivors at Auschwitz, on the 50th anniversary of the liberation.

Eva Kor thought for 10 months, trying to figure out how she could possibly thank him for what he had done. Every morning she reminded herself of the task at hand, to find a way to thank Dr. Munch for his witness. And one day, as she says, she “stumbled” on it. She decided to write him a letter of amnesty. She realized she could, in essence, forgive him.

And she did.

Inconceivable! Other survivors were greatly offended, outraged no doubt. How could Eva Kor forgive Dr. Munch for his part in her family’s murder and the holocaust. It wasn’t hers to forgive!

But she did forgive, and in the process found healing for herself. As she says, she had no power as a victim. She was powerless. But when she decided to give Dr. Munch a letter of amnesty, she discovered she had the power to forgive, and that set her free. She was no longer the perpetrator’s victim. She released him from her judgment, and in the process found her own freedom.

I was amazed at her testimony because this is a woman who doesn’t believe in God. God is not part of her worldview. Maybe she is angry at Him, or maybe she lost sight of Him, as so many did in the holocaust, because He did not rescue our people from this horror. Be that as it may, she has come to grips with something absolutely basic to the Christian faith that many Christians struggle with profoundly—forgiveness. She, who does not believe in God, forgave the people who were part of what is perhaps one of the most vile chapters in human history.

Amazingly, she even has a kind of compassion for the Germans. As Eva puts it, when the Jews look back at World War II they have nothing to be ashamed of as a people, but when the Germans look back they will always see the holocaust.

Forgiveness is very underestimated. Eva puts it this way, “Forgiveness is a seed for peace. Anger or revenge is a seed for war.”

I confess, Even after hearing some of their stories, I still struggle with why anyone would want to raise their families, live their lives in a house whose windows overlook one of the bleakest moments of human history. But I believe that kindness is a type of “seed.” And the Bible says of God, that it’s His kindness that leads us to repentance. Because of God’s love in my life I found the grace to extend His kindness to each one of the men living in those houses near Birkenau. My hope is that, even after the roses withered and the cards were misplaced, each will remember the kindness God gave me to share with them.

May we “never forget.” At the same time, may God help us find the way to forgive.

ORDER SALLY'S MUSIC
CLOSE WINDOW