This is the first in a short series on dehumanization and compassion.

One of the lessons Christian students of World War 2 must learn is the evil result of dehumanization and the healing power of compassion. Dehumanization judges groups. Compassion encounters people, fellow human beings. I believe this truth is known to the curators of Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have visited the death camp twice. It is both a tragic depiction of assembly line death and a heart cry against dehumanization.

In what is known as ‘the Sauna,’ where Jews not sent straight to the gas chambers were de-loused and sanitized, there is a wall. It has on it some number, at least hundreds, of pictures that were found among the ruins of the camp. Most of them came from one ghetto in Poland, Będzin-Sosnowiec, where the Jews formed one large extended family during the years of ghettoization. Later one or more of them must have carried these hundreds of personal photos when deported to Auschwitz, and still later they were found in the ruins.

The story they tell is that the Jews were not untermenschen, sub-humans, but real people with families and lives. I close with a brief video I shot of that truth:

This video also introduces the WW2 Christian Fiction YouTube Channel. In my day job I’ve been on YouTube for many years, both via videos of my sermons and because I love to create lyric videos for great Christian music. That YouTube Channel has almost a million views. I don’t expect WW2 Christian Fiction’s channel to tote up that many, but I do want to have a place where I can put brief video blogs, original WW2 Christian Fiction videos, and a few videos that throw light on a Christian understanding of God’s heart for people, true heroism, living daily with Jesus, etc.