Of Auschwitz, the TSA, and Surrendering Freedoms to the Government

In recent weeks the world has celebrated the 70th anniversary of the ending of the Second World War in Europe.  As part of that celebration remembrances were held at several of the notorious Nazi Concentration and Death Camps: Dachau and Auschwitz in particular.  I remember walking those graveled streets of Auschwitz years ago - on a cold, snowy March morning.  I remember the sense I had as I walked with my friend through those iron gates with the word "Arbeit Mach Frei" greeting those who entered - "Work Makes Free!"  I was there just as a visitor; Auschwitz was deserted except for an occasional school group that walked in silence down those same streets.  Yet I could not help but sense the ghosts that still lingered there some fifty years after the War.


As we walked through one building after another, my senses cried out - "Did this really happen?  Could one human being treat another like this?"  There were rooms filled with eyeglasses - nothing but eyeglasses from floor to ceiling.  Another room had nothing but human hair - tons of human hair.  Still another room had teeth; another filled with shoes; another with suitcases that had once held the only possessions these people had brought with them to this place.  Even as I am writing these words those scenes freshly appear before my mind and I experience those emotions once again. 


It seemed that as we walked the cries of death greeted us wherever we turned.  Images of people dying flooded our minds - dying, not in a normal way upon hospital beds with family surrounding them, but often just succumbing to disease and malnutrition with no one there who seemingly cared.  And, then we walked into the gas chamber where the emotions were extended almost beyond capacity.  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what those people thought as they entered into this place, many of them realizing that they would not leave alive. 


Could this happen again?  Could something like this happen in America?  We might be tempted to shake our heads and say, "No, don't be so absurd!"  But let us look more seriously at what caused an Auschwitz to happen in the first place.  That place was the product of a people - a strong-willed, determined people - who yielded their liberties into the hands of their government.  When one reads a book like William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" one realizes that such yielding of personal freedoms came gradually; but the more the people yielded, the more the government took. 


Friends, we are living in a time when our government has accelerated its taking of our personal liberties and freedoms.  We have highlighted some of those cases in recent blogs.  I was recently reading in Ecclesiastes, preparing my heart for a preaching series through this book, and came across the words of Agur in Proverbs 30:15-16 where he describes four things that are never satisfied.  I believe if Agur were alive today, he might have added a fifth: government. 


Now I realize that there are certain areas where we need governmental involvement and oversight.  But let me share an experience Marlys and I had this past weekend.  We had flown down to Dallas to see our grandson in his Fourth Grade Play and then to see both our grandsons play some baseball.  Well we saw the play, but the ballgames were rained out.  We arrived at the airport on Sunday afternoon anxious about our flight home because of stormy weather conditions there.  Of course we were greeted with the security line.  Now, I have gone through many security lines and have generally been greeted with people who somewhat seem normal, perhaps even somewhat sympathetic toward those going through the security experience.  But no such person greeted us on this Sunday.  This TSA officer barked orders as if she was a drill sergeant.  "Get into two lines."  "Take your belts off."  "Take your shoes off."  "Everything out of your pockets."  These were not said in a pleasant tone of voice, but with harshness.  I was part of a line where I felt like a herd of cattle being forced up a ramp into a trailer that was taking them who knows where.  Perhaps this experience hit me harder because of the time I had focused in recent weeks on the German Concentration Camp experience; but as I stood in that long line, I suddenly began to be aware of how those people must have felt: rising anxiety levels, uncertainty about tomorrow, fears of dying, simply looking for someone who cared. 

I know we need at TSA in the light of what happened on September 11, 2001.  And I realize that theirs is a difficult task.  But I know that for at least two travelers this past Sunday, it would have been more reassuring if one particular TSA official had a compassionate heart toward those she was responsible toward. 


As those of you know who have been following this blog for the past several years, I love history, and I love learning from history.  And, I must admit, that as a student of history I am concerned about the pathway that America is taking that mirrors that of Germany in the late 1920's and 1930's.  I wonder what the Church will do when the government begins to make demands upon its membership and upon its preachers.  Will they crumble as did many of the German pastors and congregations under the intimidation of the Nazi government, or will they resolve to continue proclaiming the Gospel as did those of the Confessing Church under the leadership of Martin Niemoeller and Detrich Bonhoeffer?  We need to be prepared.