On Holocaust Memorial Day, Paul Calvert takes a deeper look into the legacy left from the genocide of 6 million Jews.

Christa: I have only had the privilege of taking two Holocaust survivors back to the camps, but they lost a lot of family members. One lost her mother, also we heard a lot of other stories from people who have gone through the Holocaust and it's traumatic. If you lose your Mother or your Father through sickness, even then its traumatic, but if you lose them in this way and you never could say goodbye and you know that there was never a funeral and people were just tricked and cheated until the last moment when they told them that they have to take a shower, then gas came out of the shower, this is very difficult. There is also the question, is this possible to forgive? Firstly I think we have to turn as Germans and Austrians to the Lord and ask for forgiveness and also ask for forgiveness from the people we did this terrible thing to; but not to expect any answer, just to know we have to humble ourselves.

Paul: So did many Holocaust victims go to the gas chambers not knowing they were going to die that moment?

Christa: Yes that was the whole thing. They cheated them; they tricked them until the last moment. They made it look like they were going to a working camp and they said because of the lice and so on you have to take a shower and then you have to undress and then instead of water, gas came out. The gas is heavy and goes down so people climbed on top of each other because they wanted to catch some air. In one gas chamber in Auschwitz there were around 2,000 people who died within 20 minutes. On some days there were up to 25,000 people killed in one day, which is a little city!

Paul: Are there many Holocaust survivors living today?

Christa: Yes there are a lot of Holocaust survivors left in Israel, but not only Israel, in other places too. There was a report out last year that Holocaust survivors living in Israel are very poor and now there are Christians who have collected money to help the people. Also the State is now aware of the poverty of the Holocaust survivors and it wouldn't be right if they have suffered so much, that they should finish their life in poverty and worrying about their daily needs.

Paul: Is it easy for Holocaust survivors to relate to Germans?

Christa: It's hard for Holocaust survivors to relate to Germans, but even more so for their children. I totally understand that because they see us on the background of our people and sadly big parts of Christianity haven't even taken seriously their repentance and their identification repentance. That means that we also identify with the guilt of our people like Daniel did in the Bible. Daniel asked for forgiveness for his guilt and for the guilt of his nation and God was very pleased with it. He prepared Daniel for the future and I also believe if we don't take the past seriously, we are not really prepared for the future because those things we see today as we look to Iran could happen every day again. That is a nation that wants to destroy the nation of Israel and the nations don't take it seriously. They didn't in Hitler's day, even though he wrote everything he wanted to do, and also these people write books saying what they want to do and no-one takes it seriously enough.

Paul: I imagine the Jews who went through the Holocaust lost everything; they walked out of the concentration camps with absolutely nothing?

Belchez concentration camp, so many painful memories

Christa: They didn't have anything and for many the suffering didn't stop after the war. In Israel it was under British Mandate and there were ships coming to the land of Palestine and they were sent back in that time, even though England played a very positive role in bringing Jews to Palestine through the British Mandate, but during the war they also hindered ships from coming into the Land. That was also very tragic for the Jewish people, so they were really left alone from almost all the nations. Only a few nations stood with them. In Europe, Denmark was willing to take in some people and Bulgaria protected the Jews and besides that almost all the nations were working together with Hitler and even one ship, the Saint Louis, which came to America and Canada was turned away and the ship came back to Hamburg and the people were killed in Auschwitz.

Paul: What sort of questions do they come back with; do many survivors blame God for what happened to them?

Christa: I would say that many became much more religious afterwards, although many people had a big question after the Holocaust. How could this happen? God protected us, we came through the Red Sea and He protected His people all through the Old Testament, so now why did this disaster happen? That's not an easy question and I understand that many people are struggling and I don't really have an answer to this question, I just can say for sure it wasn't God's will that a Christian country - a so called Christian country would be available for this darkness, for this murder, to kill the Jewish people. Even in the New Testament it is written that salvation is coming from the Jews, Jesus said it. All our roots are in Israel, we are actually grafted into the Olive tree and the Olive tree is Israel. So it's hard to understand that even Luther who even knew the letter to the Romans by heart, that he didn't have light about this relationship between the Church and Israel. And it's now high time that we teach the Church that our roots are in Israel and that we are grafted into this Olive tree and that we are belonging together and that we have to stand in the gap also in this time.

Paul: Why did you personally go to the concentration camps?

Christa: I had visited Israel and I just felt when I was in Bergen-Belsen and later in Auschwitz that it gave me such a shock that I thought maybe I don't understand. The little I understood, it shocked me, and I was frozen because I couldn't even relate to what I saw. Only days later when I thought about Auschwitz I started to weep. If we see what really happened, then we also see that not enough happened after the war to take out the evil roots of the nationalistic social thoughts and I think that Anti Semitism can grow again in Germany and in Austria because the Church didn't do a good job, we didn't really deal with the past. We need to give counselling to those people who have been involved and ask for forgiveness. The Church should have called for prayer and fasting back then, to speak up. It's a very poor testimony about the Church and we have to work on it so that this would not repeat itself again.

Paul: So why do you think Hitler did what he did, was he brought up with the seeds of Anti Semitism?