Jesus showed up, even in the hell of the most evil place on earth

Last year I travelled with my daughter to Poland where, after having an encouraging time with some very special believers who want to change their nation, we visited what is probably the site of the greatest evil this world has ever seen.

I don’t know how to describe the experience of Auschwitz. For the first time I could understand why people would want to deny the holocaust. As I looked at the mountain of gas canisters, the roll of material made from human hair and saw the site where experiments were carried out on children, a big part of me wanted to find a way not to face the reality of how disturbingly evil we can be to one another. It is hard for me to reconcile the idea that something like this could happen.

A moment at Auschwitz will stay with me for the rest of my life. It was a moment that sharply focussed the difference between a political Kingdom and the Kingdom of God. We were taken down into a dark, cold and musty smelling basement that served as the cells of prisoners waiting for execution. Inside one of them was a big candle, which seemed incongruous in such a horrible place. Our tour guide told us about Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest who died as prisoner 16770.

Fr. Kolbe had made a name for himself in the prison, quietly serving and comforting wherever he could. As a result he was singled out for special punishment and after one incident that nearly killed him, his response to his persecutors had such a profound affect on the German Doctor that he later testified “I can say with certainty that during my four years in Auschwitz, I never saw such a sublime example of the love of God and one’s neighbor.”

In July 1941, as punishment for the escape of a prisoner, ten men were randomly selected to be locked up without food and water until they died. One of them cried out that his wife and children needed him. Fr. Kolbe stepped forward and said “I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.” Maximilian Kolbe was the last of the ten prisoners to die, his life ended by a lethal injection because he survived for so long without food or water.

The escaped prisoner was later found drowned in a latrine, he hadn’t even escaped.

In the moment, the commandant looked like the one with power, but it was the  brave polish priest that continues to have impact today.

Jesus showed up, even in the hell of the most evil place on earth.