His Dead Shall Live
Here Iwand recounts a story told to him by a German civil engineer who had witnessed a mass execution.
Via Iwand, ‘Vortrage und Aufsatze’ (NW 2), p.363
It all happened in a big ditch. Some steps were dug into the limestone going down into the huge grave. Down the steps each of the sacrificed ones, men, women, and children, had to go completely naked and at the bottom lie down to be shot. The man doing the shooting was an SS man who sat on the edge of the narrow side of the grave on the ground, his feet hanging down. Across his knees lay a machine gun. He smoked a cigarette. No one cried, no one pleaded for his or her life. But the witness did see a father who held a boy of about ten by the hand. The boy was fighting back the tears. The father pointed with his finger into the heavens and stroked the head of the boy and seemed to explain something to him. It is just this finger pointing to the heavens–this alone is what can be said to all this. Somehow it is a sign pointing to that One who alone holds the key in face of such nameless terror… What we don’t seem to have comprehended yet is that the sword of the tyrannical one in this murder if the Jews–that this sword was out to get the King of the Jews, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what we haven’t grasped–that the attack on the Jews was aimed at us, the Christian Church! That which Christ brought together–Jews and Gentiles–we allowed to break asunder. As the synagogues burned, heathendom was at work trying to conquer our Christian houses or worship for themselves. A terrible myth of ‘Blut und Boden’ came like a foreign influence upon the people and overtook the country and the old gods rose up again… And if we are unchanged, then it remains firm and will continue to show its face to us, indicting us. But should repentance and new birth come into play among us–which, of course, is something we ourselves cannot do and yet for which we can beg–then even that seemingly rigid and staring past will budge and the Spirit which turns us around also blows upon the field of dead bones. There is only one comfort n the face of this vast field of guilt, sin, and death–and that is to place the judgment in God’s hand. There is that finger again! Pointing toward heaven and giving comfort that his dead shall live.
