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If you have read my introductory post, you are aware that I have homeschooled for 26 years.  During that time, my family has participated in a few different co-ops.  It seems that I almost always taught the high school students, maybe because I usually had one.  With more than one group of young people, I would dive into the lessons from World War 2 and the Holocaust.

In my opinion, this is one of the most fascinating, yet horrific, events in history.  I believe every student should have a working knowledge of this time period.  Furthermore, they need to understand how such a tragic event could even happen.  I must say it terrifies me when I see a video clip of college students who don’t know who Adolf Hitler was.

In the words of the philosopher, George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

What are the lessons from World War II?  Well, there are many.  Since the lessons could easily fill the pages of a very long book, I am only going to touch briefly on a few of them.

Be careful who or what we put our hope in.  The German economy was in shambles.  The new Weimar Republic was weak and armed revolts were rampant. Then, the Great Depression hit and brought worldwide devastation.  The German people were afraid and they were desperate.

In waltzes Adolf Hitler with his charismatic personality who claims he has the power to save them. He links solving Germany’s economic problems with reasserting their military power.  And like desperately lost sheep, they follow.  They are told what to do.  They are told what to think and how to raise their children. Hitler controls everything.  He leaves nothing to chance…who they can associate with, who they can marry, where and when they can buy what they need.  And they do it.

Because they are afraid and desperate, they put their hope in this evil man. They put their hope in the government.  The loss of their liberties was irrelevant if it kept them safe. What happened to the Jewish people didn’t matter if it put bread on their table. They end up sacrificing so incredibly much to just feel safe and secure.

They placed their hope and faith in the wrong person.

Psalm 20:7 tells us: 

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
    but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

We need to look to God for our security and our provision.  Period!  In my opinion, we also need to be really careful about what and who we are willing to sacrifice to just “feel” safe.

Don’t dehumanize people.  Hitler wasted no time in blaming the Jewish population for many of their problems.  Although antisemitism had been in Europe for quite some time, Hitler capitalized on it.  He took it to the extreme.

Hitler, like other racists, believed that some people groups are superior to others.  He was out to “purify” the “German Race” which, according to him, was the most superior.  A believer in evolution, it is said he wanted to rid the world of the less advanced, less “human” groups.  For Hitler, the lowest group was the Jews.  They were on the bottom rung of the evolutionary ladder and therefore, not really human.

Because of this, he felt like he could do whatever he wanted with them.  If they weren’t fully human, then they didn’t have any rights, did they?

He was not the first nor has he been the last to dehumanize a group of people for one’s convenience.  The slaves were dehumanized so that we could justify the barbaric treatment they received.  And now, unborn babies “aren’t really people yet” so that we can deny their God-given rights and justify the atrocities of abortion.

In the words of Dr. Seuss, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

From the Bible we find:

Genesis 1:27

So God created man in His own image;
He created him in the image of God;
He created them male and female.

No person is less or more important than any other nor are they “less human”. We can’t take their humanity from them because it is convenient for us to do so.

Education is Key.  Hitler knew that in order to control the people, he had to control what they thought.   In order to control the future, he had to teach the children according to his philosophy.

Through propaganda, he fed the people what he wanted them to know and what he wanted them to think.  Through the education system, he brainwashed the youth to fall in step with his desires.  He replaced all curriculum in the classrooms to fall into place with the Nazi regime.  Children were taught at a young age to hate the Jews and to worship Hitler.

All youth either went to the Hitler Youth for boys or the League of German Maidens for girls.  Boys were taught to fight and show no mercy.  Girls were taught their only purpose was to “breed” soldiers for Germany.

One of the reasons why I homeschooled for 26 years and why my youngest three are now attending a Christian school is because I understand the importance of education.  As their mom, I want to make sure they are learning what is good and right.

Proverbs 22:6 tells us:

“Start children off on the way they should go,
    and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”

As parents, we need to guard what goes into our children’s minds when they are young.

Be the person that does what’s right. When the Nazis were in power, it was very risky to do what was right.  It could have possibly cost you your life.  Yet, there were many who did it anyway.  Most know the story of Corrie and Betsie ten Boom.  They helped to save the lives of around 800 people. This was just one family.  There were many, many others who chose to do what was right when their “world” was going crazy.

When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland

Did you know that in Denmark the Danish people smuggled almost 7,000 Jewish people across the sea to safety in Sweden?  In another country, Irena Sendler worked through the Polish Underground to smuggle nearly 2,500 children out of the ghetto.

I could list many, many more.  But the point is, choose to do what is right.  It may cost you.  A lot. However, I’m pretty sure the people who risked so much during this time would tell you it was worth it.

Matthew 10:28

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Do what’s right.

I’m not saying it’s easy.  I can tell you that it won’t be.  Certainly, if it was easy, everyone would do it. But just look at the impact that the people who chose to do the right thing during WWII had on so many others. Just think how the outcome for the Jewish people, along with those who didn’t measure up to Hitler’s standards, might have been different if more people had done so.

We can make a difference.

As you can see, these are just a few of the lessons from World War II and the Holocaust that we need to learn.  I realize I just touched the surface.  Barely. That unfortunately, is really all I had time to do.   But hopefully I gave you something to think about.

In my next post I am going to talk about the books that I will use to teach the lessons from World War II.  I hope you will join me.

FYI…the picture above is of a Holocaust Memorial in Budapest, Hungary.