What Do You Do in the Face of Great Evil?

Jerusalem — You walk into the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and the walls already seem to be closing in on you. That’s by design. Imagine what it was to be brought into one of the concentration camps to die.

I’ve walked through the camps in Auschwitz and Dachau. Auschwitz on a brutally hot August day, not having the nerve to complain. At Yad Vashem, I didn’t have the nerve to cry until we watched the liberation of some of the camps. Documentary footage showed piles of bodies being removed — what else was there to do? Videos showed people who were emaciated. They were soon to die. Even after liberation, people died. You don’t think about that every day. You think about the gas chambers, but you don’t think about the death that was still to come.

Around this time of year, in 2000, Pope John Paul II visited the same place. As a Pole, he knew in an intimate way the horror of the Holocaust. At Yad Vashem, he said: “Here, as at Auschwitz and many other places in Europe, we are overcome by the echo of the heart-rending laments of so many. Men, women, and children cry out to us from the depths of the horror that they knew. How can we fail to heed their cry? No one can forget or ignore what happened. No one can diminish its scale.”

We walked through exhibits about books that were banned and people who were killed. The inhumanity that made it necessary that the state of Israel exist. Still people hate. And still people persevere. In Bat Shema, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, my group, organized by the Philos Project, broke up and had Shabot dinner with Orthodox Jewish families. Life goes on in the tradition that the Nazis tried to exterminate. It is critical that life goes on, that the prayers continue, and that Christians and Jews continue to live side by side. Especially in such a historic and ancient land. Jerusalem breathes history and begs us all to remember not only the holiness that has come before but also the evil.

As John Paul II put it: “We wish to remember. But we wish to remember for a purpose, namely, to ensure that never again will evil prevail, as it did for the millions of innocent victims of Nazism.”

He said: “How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God. Only a Godless ideology could plan and carry out the extermination of a whole people.”

He also noted: “The honor given to the ‘just gentiles’ by the State of Israel at Yad Vashem for having acted heroically to save Jews, sometimes to the point of giving their own lives, is a recognition that not even in the darkest hour is every light extinguished. That is why the Psalms, and the entire Bible, though well aware of the human capacity for evil, also proclaim that evil will not have the last word. Out of the depths of pain and sorrow, the believer’s heart cries out: ‘I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”’ (Ps 31:14).”

It is a remarkable thing to see the honor given to non-Jews who did all they could to protect Jews during the Holocaust. The righteous gentiles. A Christian cannot help but wonder: Would I have been counted among them? What would I have done? Would I have risked my life for my fellow man? For my neighbor who was so callously dehumanized?

There is evil in the world always, and it takes courage to stand up against it. Would we? Do we?

It’s somewhat unbearable to walk the streets of Jerusalem and remember the hatred that continues today for Jews. Antisemitism exists in my own New York. Hasidic Jews face attacks as they walk the streets — even women and children. Jesus Christ himself was crucified in this land. He brings us together in this way. Even those who don’t believe in his divinity know of his goodness. As Christians approach Holy Week in these coming weeks, we see not Jews but every one of us lowly sinners as having killed him, but.

At Yad Vashem, JPII said: “Jews and Christians share an immense spiritual patrimony, flowing from God’s self-revelation. Our religious teachings and our spiritual experience demand that we overcome evil with good. We remember, but not with any desire for vengeance or as an incentive to hatred. For us, to remember is to pray for peace and justice, and to commit ourselves to their cause. Only a world at peace, with justice for all, can avoid repeating the mistakes and terrible crimes of the past.”

World peace seems so impossible, especially at a place like this. But it’s in remembering that we can seek something better.

He said: “The world must heed the warning that comes to us from the victims of the Holocaust and from the testimony of the survivors. Here at Yad Vashem the memory lives on, and burns itself onto our souls. It makes us cry out: ‘I hear the whispering of many — terror on every side! — But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ (Ps 31:13-15).”

There are Scriptural words that Jews and Christians share. They unite us going forward as we reject the evil that has been perpetrated, and we insist on life-giving flourishing for humanity, remembering those whose innocence has been stolen. I read JPII’s words as I walked the halls, because I needed his accompaniment. Would such evil be perpetrated again, how would we react? How would we respond?

There is evil in the world today. Have we learned from our mistakes? Are we among the just?

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.