From Anti-Semitism to Anti-Christism; The 21st Century Holocaust is Upon Us

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IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

Recently the Anti-Defamation League conducted a global survey asking questions about the Holocaust. Unbelievably, two-thirds of the respondents (mostly younger people) had NEVER heard of the Holocaust and, for those that had, many did not believe the history and suggested that it was simply exaggerated. The rejection of a history so recent and so well documented boggles the mind. 
The term, “Denial” is a stock psychological term and most everyone knows what it means when used in proper context. Denying the existence of the Holocaust transcends “Denial”.  I believe that Holocaust denial must first be fueled by a self-absorbed apathy that results in indifference to all things that do not concern the “denier”. The journey to denying Truth then becomes easier if it might cause one so absorbed to experience “pain or discomfort”.

After being so weakened with one’s own self-love, denying the Holocaust becomes easy. Let’s face it, the horrors inflicted upon millions and millions of fellow human beings by their own kind is hard to fathom. But to deny or reject the documented history of such an era is just asinine. If you are among those who might “deny” the Holocaust ever happened you are one step away from falling into the bottomless pit of idiocy.

Bundesarchiv, B 285 Bild-04413 / Stanislaw Mucha / CC-BY-SA
Entrance to Auschwitz~~Gateway to Extermination

Seventy (70) years ago Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. Today, genocide is once again running rampant in parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle-east, and is widening like a swarm of unstoppable locusts spreading slowly and viciously across the world. What is the difference of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis in Germany or the genocide being perpetrated by ISIS and radical Muslim Extremists in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan and even Europe and bit by bit in the United States? The answer–NOTHING.

Nothing is different because the end result is the same. Extermination of those that are hated. Whatever the reason one has for committing these atrocities does not matter. Hate is hate and it comes from an ‘evil spirit’ that has captured and harnessed each and every one of those haters having them commit their atrocities with glee and pleasure. How sick and twisted this is. How sick and twisted it is to deny it is happening now as it did then. How irresponsible and derelict in their responsibilities are the  educators and historians and those who know better to NOT teach this history and, worse yet, to alter and/or taint it.

The picture above is not fake. It is not a sketch or a painting. It is of a REAL place. It is the entrance to Auschwitz/Birkenau in Poland. People like you and I—men, women, children, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, grandparents, cousins and friends—were all brought to this place against their will. Upon arrival at this annex of Hades, they were immediately either put to work as slaves or sent to the gas chambers and murdered. They had been dehumanized, declared  “sub-human” and efficiently eradicated.  Ladies and gentlemen, young and old alike, there is NO DENYING THIS.

Yes, they were real people. They had dreams and hopes and loved and sang and danced and enjoyed a nice meal. They loved Hanukkah and Christmas (there were over two thousand Catholic priests murdered in the Holocaust and many Catholic nuns). Included among those possessing “lives unworthy of life” were, gypsies, Soviets, homosexuals, disabled persons, Slavs, religious and political dissidents, and non-Jewish poles and Dutch and Austrians and French and on and on. Six million Jews and another six million non-Jews. And people DENY that the Holocaust actually happened. Are you kidding me?

It is the year 2015. When Auschwitz was liberated General Eisenhower told his people to photograph everything lest the day comes when people begin to forget. The photos and film and records of this vicious genocide is there for all the world to see. Yet people deny it and schools may teach it in a cursory manner if at all. ISIS is running rampant throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa wantonly killing Christians without repercussion.  Thousands upon thousands of innocent people, including Americans, have been killed in ISIS’s world wide “Jihad” against the “infidels”.

ISIS just published a 22 minute video of the the most heinous and barbaric execution of a captured Jordanian pilot. They burned him alive in a cage for all the world to see. Unlike the Nazis who tried to camouflage their genocide the cowardly barbarians of ISIS want the world to see what they do and hope that we cower in fear. They have publicly beheaded Americans, Japanese, French, British  and others from around the world. They plan to continue their barbarous work on our very shores. Remember Fort Hood, Boston, and Oklahoma City?

It seems to me that the United States of America, a country comprised of people rooted in all nations of the world and blessed with an abundance of technology and resources, has  a responsibility to take the lead in the fight against these maniacal terrorists who  kill, unhesitatingly, even our children. They hate us and are waging war against us and our friends around the world. It is time for our leaders to forget “political correctness”, strap on some American pride and spit bullets into the eye of this thing called ISIS.

The 20th century is gone but not forgotten for millions of us. Our children and grandchildren deserve to experience some 20th century peace and prosperity like we did. God help us all and may God always bless America.

                                                    copyright 2015 Larry Peterson

"The Scandal that is a "Shameful Silence"

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IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

by Larry Peterson                                                         

“Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.”   Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian in Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler.  His book, “The Cost of Discipleship”, has become a classic.  Focusing on the “Sermon on the Mount”, the book more or less spelled out what  Bonhoeffer thought was the true way to follow Christ.  In addition to his theological writings and teaching, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a staunch, anti Nazi dissident.  He spoke out vigorously against Hitler’s euthanasia and genocidal persecution of the Jews and, in so doing,  became a hated enemy of the Third Reich. As such, he was arrested in April 1943 and on April 9, 1945 was hanged, accused of  the ambiguous crime of “plotting against the Nazis”.

We move ahead 69 years to 2014.  The following is a statement from His Grace, Bishop Suriel of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Diocese of  Melbourne:
“The world watches in silence as the last Christians are expelled from Mosul, Iraq, in one of the most merciless and barbaric acts of genocide we have seen in the 21st  Century.”

We are absolutely fascinating creatures, we humans are.  Many of our species can be so kind and compassionate, loving and gentle, sweet and understanding.  Many people will save a tiny bird with an injured wing or a cat stuck up in a tree.  They will send money to perfect strangers to help them through a crisis.  They will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and give drink to the thirsty.

Then you flip the coin over and you have many of the very same species who are filled with a self-gratification which culminates in a hate and disdain for others of their own kind.  These include those who will torture and kill their fellow humans  for the most obtuse reasons such as:  religion, skin color, birthplace,  political beliefs or whatever other self-serving reason a murderer may come up with.  Many kill and torture saying they were “only following orders” and had no choice. Others kill because of pride fueled by envy and greed.

So I ask why?  Why are we, all of the same species, so different in our hearts?  How can some of us kill and others forgive them for doing so?   Why do some of us willingly and joyfully give of ourselves for people we may not even know?  Why do some of us  hate others they may not even know?  Why are there those that love their fellow human being unconditionally?  The answer has to be because of the very existence of “good vs evil”.  What is “Good vs Evil”?  I can tell you what it is and I do not care if you disagree. It  is the war waged by Satan and those that follow him against  the God of Love that created him and all of his followers.  If you take a breath and look at the world of today and then glance back at yesterday and the centuries before, what has changed in the hearts of man?

Mosul,  the very cradle of Christianity, can trace the followers of Jesus back to the first century.  As of today it seems that the entire Christian population of Mosul has been purged from this ancient and historic city.  Murder, including beheading of  civilians and the wanton murder of women and children has virtually eradicated the city’s Christians.  And what do we see and hear from the print and broadcast media?  We hear the sound of nothing. We hear the sound of a “Shameful  Silence” that reverberates throughout the very souls of all the people vanquished because they were Christians.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it, “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.”  He was hanged by the Nazis for his “crimes” over 70 years ago.  What has changed? The press was quiet then as the Nazis purged the world of the “hated Jew”.  Most of the main stream media (print and broadcast) is quiet now as the Islamists purge the world of the “hated Christian”.  The Shameful Silence is a disgrace.  Nothing has changed, nothing at all.

The Genocide Continues–but Without the Music

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IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

by Larry Peterson

The pages of history are littered with the evil purveyors of death by genocide.  But the Nazis have to be awarded Satan’s Black Medal of Evil.  They managed to accomplish the three Ps all at the same time: proficiency, productivity and performance.  Yup, no one has ever killed so many innocents with the efficiency of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

These disciples of all that is evil, even fine-tuned the process to a point where they had orchestras playing music as the doomed were “merrily” paraded to their deaths.   The irony was that the Nazis had silenced Jewish musicians throughout Germany and their occupied countries.  Then some of the upper echelon “death designers”,  in their ongoing quest to speed up and expedite the extermination process, decided to add beautiful music to the blood curdling screams coming from those about to die.  So they began rounding up the silenced musicians, gathered up confiscated instruments (including many grand pianos) and distributed them to death camps.  The orders were for the commanders of these camps to put together an orchestra and have them play music for the prisoners as they departed the death trains and as they were marched to their deaths.

Imagine the utter callousness of the conquerors.  They decided to use orchestras to drown out the anguished cries coming from the camps.  The prisoners dubbed this practice, “Symphonia Diabolica” or the “Devil’s Symphony”.  At the Janowska concentration camp located near Ukraine, SS officer Wilhelm Rokita, a former violinist, ordered the inmate orchestra to compose something a bit more “lively” than the standard classical fare. They came up with a little ditty called, “Tango fun toyt” or “Tango of  Death”.  This piece had some ‘bounce” to it and it encouraged the condemned to “move more quickly” as they were herded to their executions.  This is hard to even imagine but it happened and was orchestrated by folks who not long before were, for the most part,  regular, hardworking, family types who seemingly would not hurt anyone or anything.  It is proof that we must never, ever underestimate the power and influence of evil.

That was then and this is now.  What has changed?  The genocide continues—but without the music.  As we sit and move through our day Christians and Jews are the targets of the the forces of the Evil One.  I do not mean to minimize what is happening in Gaza but there is an  intentional massacre and elimination of Christians and Christianity taking place in Iraq and other places.  One third of Iraq has already been conquered by Islamist radicals who have declared the territory a new Caliphate.  This means that this is now a Muslim nation under Sharia Law and the Constitution of Medina.  There is NO place for Christianity in this place.  The entire nation of Iraq is targeted for complete  takeover.

There are no up to date numbers as to how many Catholics and non-Catholic Christians have been executed.  All Christians have been ordered to convert to Islam or leave the city immediately, leaving their belongings behind.  Penalty for non-compliance is  immediate death.  The Islamist maniacs and butchers have no concentration camps and there is definitely no music being played.  These evil-doers simply kill you and they actually seem to get “joy” from lopping off the head of an “infidel”.  Where is the world’s outrage?

There were supposedly one million plus Christians in Iraq before 2003.  The last number (before the US completely pulled out) was 400, 000.  There are unconfirmed reports from Mosul that all women between the ages of 11 and 46 will have to go for immediate “circumcision”.  What kind of medieval, barbaric behavior is this.  Why aren’t the women’s organizations screaming about this?   Why isn’t our mainstream media reporting it?  Why hasn’t our administration  engaged with this?  American dead from the Iraq war comes to 4800.  Almost 32,000 Americans were wounded.  We stabilized that nation and now it is being stolen away by lunatics.  Doesn’t anyone give a damn?  We are not only watching the annihilation of Christianity in the mid-east but Christianity is under attack all over the world.

Violence against Christians has become a global epidemic.  From North Korea, to Syria, to Iraq, and Libya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan,  Iran, and most of  sub-Saharan Africa, Christians are being tortured and killed.  In Europe they are being slowly but surely minimized on their way to the secular and Islamist goal of eradication.

Right here, in the United States of America, the land of the “free”, Christianity is being portrayed as indifferent and intolerant because it stands its ground against the forces of secularism.  There are Americans who want to purge it from the public square, this in a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles.   We have those who are offended by a cross and go to court to have it removed.  They must not have a clue as to how they are chipping away at the very foundation of the greatest nation ever to exist.

They might want to consider that the Islamist radicals want them dead too.  They hate them as much as they hate any Christian simply because they are American.  They hate anyone that doesn’t defer to their religious fanaticism.  If they ever manage to come here they will not be playing music.  It is time for everyone to pray.

                                                                                             

Bashing God in America: How "FAR" You Have NOT Come

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by Larry Peterson

I am over it.  I am fed up with these whiny cry-baby atheists who for some bizarre reason have decided that God and Christianity are “offensive”.  I also think the agencies, administrators, judges etc., who uphold their ridiculous argument that even so much as mentioning the name of GOD violates our Constitution are also pathetic.  Those folks are using their positions of responsibility to undermine the very foundation that this great nation was built upon.  That bedrock, like it or not,  is known as the Judeo-Christian principle.  Anything else promoted as the bedrock is an impostor and is simply secular hogwash.  Here is a quote from our second president, John Adams; “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  Imagine President Adams saying that today. Imagine any president or politician saying that.                        

The Pilgrims and Puritans and Quakers and Catholics and Mennonites and so many others came here for religious freedom. The existence of God was never in question. His existence was an absolute. The question was, how do we acquire the freedom to worship God in our own way?  It took the colonialists about 180 years, from the forming of the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia in 1607 until, as newborn  Americans, they ratified the Constitution on September 17, 1787. It was not until 1791 that the first ten amendments to the Constitution were ratified. They became known as the Bill of Rights and the very first one states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

 Easter season is once again upon us. It is the Christian celebration of new life and redemption. Yet there are so many in positions of authority that step on the Constitution trying to obliterate the words in it.  We Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  We believe that “Christ has died, Christ has risen, and that Christ will come again.”  Isn’t that our right as Americans?  Jesus seems to be hated by many, including the vitriolic atheists who want His very existence “stricken from the record” by trying to claim it is illegal. Yes siree, I, for one,  am over it and tired of it.  Jesus Christ preached LOVE and KINDNESS and FORGIVENESS. Is that a problem?  Why would that “offend” anyone?  Plus, He was beaten, tortured and killed because He promoted those virtues. Does that make any sense?  Yes it does because, as history has proven over and over, often times pride and greed and ego squash love and kindness and forgiveness into smithereens. It is very sad that so many people can be filled with so much hate. So much so that they willingly kill and destroy and do everything they can to eradicate all that is GOOD. And they do it claiming it is virtuous. What a joke. How “FAR” You have NOT come.

If you do not want to believe in God I do not care. Knock yourself out. Sit under a tree and feed a squirrel. That is the beauty of America. It is okay to do that. But this business about mocking Christianity and trying to have it taken from the public square is utter nonsense. More than anything else though, it is spitting into the faces of all those two billion plus people around the world who follow Christ and His teachings. It is mocking the millions of Jewish people exterminated in the Holocaust. It demonizes a 75 year old priest, Father Frans Van der Lugt,  who was beaten and murdered in Syria last week for being kind and loving to the poor and needy for more than fifty years. It defiles the memory of the 80 Christians who were executed in North Korea last November because they each owned a Bible.

You people who want God out of the American equation are fools. The reason you  have this right to complain is because our country is built on the Judeo-Christian principle. If you lived in North Korea or Iran, or China or Afghanistan, or Pakistan or Somalia and tried this you would be tortured and killed and never heard from again. But you live in the United States of America that allows you to spit into the faces of so many without retribution. You are blessed more than you can know.

To all  you God haters and deniers, I’m am tired of your rants. You know, back in 1938 Kate Smith introduced the Irving Berlin song, “God Bless America”.  I would venture to say that almost every American, young and old alike, knows this song.  Every time we sing it, no matter what the venue, we, as Americans are asking GOD to bless us. It is our national prayer as Americans. It is a beautiful thing. If you choose to be “offended” by that simple prayer because it uses the name of GOD, can’t you just keep it to yourself and keep your mouth shut?  You are the ones being offensive.  How “FAR” You  have NOT come.”

From the First Good Friday through Today, the Persecution of LOVE & GOOD Has Never Ended

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by Larry Peterson

On Palm Sunday, Christians the world over remember the triumphant entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem more than 2000 years ago.  Riding on the back of a donkey, He was welcomed and praised as the Saviour and Messiah by people waving palms and laying palm fronds in front of Him.  Five days later, many of these same people, suddenly bloated with an evil-induced hatred,  scornfully screamed for him to be crucified.  Jesus Christ changed the world forever. He was the ultimate example of LOVE and GOOD. He loved His brothers and sisters, no matter who they were.  I guess that made Him a threat to many so they tortured and killed Him.  As the centuries passed by, countless followers of  LOVE and GOOD have met similar fates and this persecution and savagery continues unabated to this very day.

Only last week on April 7, Father Frans Van der Lugt, 75, was brutally beaten and shot to death in Syria. Why? He followed Jesus and loved his neighbor.  Last November, North Korea executed 80 Christians. Why? They each had their own bible. As we travel back over the timeline of history Christian persecution is splattered all over it.  Sister Maria Restituta was a nun and a nurse in Germany during World War II. She was guillotined in 1944. Why?  Because she refused to take down a crucifix from a bedroom wall in a hospital.  Father Otto Neururer was a Catholic priest who had the audacity to perform an “illegal” baptism.  He was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp and, under the direction of Martin Summer, aka “The Hangman of Buchenwald”, was hanged upside down and left that way until he died. The Nazi era is littered with the corpses of not only millions of Jews, but also of Catholic/Christians whose main crime was usually helping their brother and sister Jews. When all is said and done their crime was always one of embracing what is LOVE and what is GOOD.

There are the Martyrs of Nagasaki, 26 men and boys, crucified in Japan on February 5, 1597. Why?  They followed and preached LOVE and GOOD.  Pope John Paul II canonized 25 martyred priests who had been murdered between 1927 and 1928 during the Cristero War in Mexico.  During these dark days in Mexico thousands of others were also killed for following LOVE and GOOD.  From Jesus Christ, to his apostles, to the early Christians being mauled to death in the Colosseum,  to the Holocaust and onward to Father Frans Van der Lugt on April 7, 2014, the bloody war against LOVE and GOOD advances undeterred.  Ironically, this war can never win its hate-filled quest to rid the world of its despised enemy.

I could go on and on because there have been so many, many people tortured and killed for following LOVE and GOOD that the stories would fill volumes. But there is one group of 16 followers of LOVE and GOOD that I must mention because I believe they saved a nation from its own self-destruction. Those 16 people are all women and are known as  the  Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne. These women, holding hands and singing, willingly offered themselves to the guillotine if it could bring an end to the horrors of the French Revolution. One by one they smilingly went to their deaths. Under Maximilien Robespierre the bloodlust and hatred toward Catholics raged as the twisted virtues of the Age of Enlightenment and the Reign of Terror mixed their evil brew into a daily severing of heads before screaming mobs. Not this time. On July 17, 1794 that all ended.

The mob was gleefully screaming when the nuns were brought to the execution site. While holding hands the  nuns began singing  Salve Regina and Veni Creator Spiritus. Suddenly, the thousands of people present fell silent. The only sound to be heard was the thump of the guillotine as it went about it its impersonal savagery. When the executions were finished the witnessing mob had changed.  Instead of cheers there were tears and sobs and heads hung low. People began to pray.  Ten days later Robespierre was executed and the French Revolution and Reign of Terror ended.  The evil was evaporated under the power of LOVE and GOOD.  The 16 courageous nuns were beatified and declared “Blessed” in May of 1906 by Pope St. Pius X. Their canonization is pending. Talk about courage. Talk about LOVE. Talk about all that is GOOD.  Theirs changed a nation.

 The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the very fulfillment of all that is LOVE and GOOD because GOD is LOVE and LOVE is GOD. The fact that His life and death changed the world forever seems to be passed over by many who think  that part of the story is a mere fable.  Well, for those who believe, no explanation is necessary and for those who do not, none is possible unless they open their minds and hearts and ask to see the unseeable. Then, they too will see. For all those who have given their very lives for this LOVE and for those who will in the future, theirs are the stories we should all honor and embrace.  HAPPY EASTER & HAPPY PASSOVER

P.S.  Question: How come no one was ever able to find the Body?

Killing & Persecuting Christians & Jews: The Evil of the Centuries Continues Unchecked

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Jozef & Viktoria Ulma; Polish Catholics
Executed by the Nazis on March 24, 1944
Crime: Hiding a Jewish family
by Larry Peterson
Look at the picture of the people to the right.  There names are Jozef & Viktoria  Ulma.  Polish Catholics, they gave their lives so that their Jewish neighbors might live.  It happened 70 years ago and nothing has changed.  It is the year 2014 and Nazi goon squads, empowered by the “law” as defined by the Final Solution, are no longer around.  But their heirs apparent live and kill to this very day.  North Korea, the number one nation for Christian persecution, publicly executed  80 people last November  for ‘possessing’ Bibles.  Yes…Bibles. In that demonically controlled country alone  it is estimated that close to 70,000 followers of Jesus are suffering in prison camps for crimes such as going to church, sharing their faith or owning a Bible.  Where is the world’s outrage and condemnation?

Feeding the Christians to ferocious, flesh-eating lions and tigers inside the Colosseum in ancient Rome was done for ‘entertainment’.  Like a modern day Sunday football game packed with screaming fans, thousands upon thousands of shrieking spectators packed the seats and aisles inside the Colosseum as young men, women and even children were torn apart for the pleasure of the emperor and the citizens.  This inhumane and vicious bloodlusting  has been followed by centuries of Christian persecution.  Today it has mushroomed into a horrendous and bloody human rights crisis.  History has been witness to the wholesale slaughter of God loving people, both Christians and Jews.  Loving God has proven to be a dangerous and deadly love affair for many.

Joe Ulma was a librarian, a photographer, an experienced fruit grower and a  bee-keeper.  He was very active in his town of Markowa and was involved with the Catholic Youth Organization.  He was 12 years older than his wife, Viktoria, who was a homemaker and mom to their six children: Stanislaw, age 8,  Barbara, age 7,  Vladyslaw, age 6,  Franciszek, age 4,  Antoni, age 3, and Maria, age 2. In addition, Viktoria was pregnant with their seventh child and was almost full term.

During the summer of 1942 the Nazi military police began deporting Jewish families from Markowa to the Nazi death camps as part of the Final Solution.  The only way Jews in Markowa could survive was for them to be taken in and hidden by non-Jewish Polish citizens.  The Ulmas took eight Jews into their home.  They knew what the penalty would be if they were found out but, being devout Catholics, they were not about to turn their backs on their Jewish neighbors.  During the darkness of night the Szall family, which included  dad, mom, and four kids plus two sisters from the Goldman family, were snuck into the Ulma house and hidden in the attic.  Somehow they managed to stay in hiding for one and a half years.

Early on the morning of March 24, 1944,  Lt. Eilert Dieken led his band of German soldiers to the Ulma house and surrounded it. They had been informed that the Szall family had been hiding there. They promptly caught all eight of the Jewish people which included two adults and six children. The prisoners were brought outside and several witnesses were gathered to act as observers.  Each of the eight was summarily shot in the back of the head.  Then Lt. Dieken ordered the Ulmas outside. He had the Ulma children lined up and made them watch as their dad and pregnant mom were shot to death right in front of them. The children began screaming so 23-year old Joseph Kokott got permission from Dieken to quiet them.  He shot three of them while his fellow executioners, Michael Dziewulski and Erich Wilde, shot the rest.  In a matter of minutes the German squad had executed  17 people.  The 17th person was Viktoria’s seventh child.  It was discovered upon exhumation to bury them in a cemetery that the child was almost born as Viktoria lay dead in the grave pit.  What evil there is in the hearts of so many.

I include the Ulma family in this essay because we always discuss the people who are tortured, raped, imprisoned, brutalized and killed for their religious beliefs in terms of hundreds and/or thousands; and in the case of the Holocaust, many millions.  We tend to lose sight of the individuality of each of those people.  The Ulmas were no different than the rest of us. And, like the Ulmas, each and every one of those who has suffered  the fear and agony of the religiously defiled, was an  individual person with feelings, hopes and dreams. They had family and friends whom they loved,  they laughed, they cried, they loved to dance and sing, to hug their children and to eat cake. They enjoyed a Sunday picnic and loved Christmas or Passover. And they all had every shred of personal  dignity  ripped unmercifully from their very existence.  Their crime, in the case of the Ulmas, loving their neighbor through Christ; in the case of the Szall family and Goldman children, being the Jewish neighbors that were loved.  To understand this heinous behavior by people against people is so hard to do. I can only surmise that it must be hatred of God Himself and, since  the God haters cannot see or touch Him, they hate and defile those that love Him.

We here in the United States have been blessed with religious freedom. It is under serious attack by those who would eliminate God from our society. They do this by using the very freedom this nation affords them. They must turn to history to see what has happened in non-God societies.  We can see the beginnings of serious Christian persecution right here in America.  I hope and pray that there is not a future Ulma family somewhere within our borders. We must always remember how blessed we are to live in this country with the freedoms it provides.  Freedoms worth dying for.  Especially our first freedom, Freedom of Religion.

Post Script: Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma were declared Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1995 and their cause for Beatification  was presented to Rome by the  Catholic Church of Poland in 2003.

The HOLOCAUST–We All Must Remember and We Must Teach Our Children

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by Larry Peterson

January 27 marked the 69th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most prolific and deadly of all the Nazi death camps.  The day is called International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Interestingly, or might I say, unbelievably, this day was not officially “remembered” until November, 2005,  60 years after the Russian army liberated the camp.  This anniversary marks the beginning of the end of the reign of terror that had engulfed Europe and ultimately the entire world  under the demonic leadership of Adolf Hitler and his evil minions of Nazi followers.

There were over six million Jews and close to six million others who perished during this dark time.  It is hard to fathom the scope of this depravity and how it could have even happened.  But–it did.  Okay, to the point.

The word  “Holocaust” has a number of synonyms:  annihilation, extermination, carnage, genocide, and slaughter, might be a few.  But the word does not bring you to the very core of what it actually represents— the victims of human evil.  They were just  people who became victims simply because they were perceived as being “different” and therefore unacceptable to the rest of society. Who decided such a thing?  The people in power, that’s who.  They took that power to a level of unheralded arrogance deciding who should live and who should die.  We tend to think of the “millions’ who perished but we rarely think of them as individuals unless some story grabs our attention like “The Diary of Anne Frank”,  “The Devil’s Arithmetic” and, of course, “Schindler’s List”.

Each and every one of the people who had their very God given existence taken away from them were like all of us.  They had their hopes and dreams.  They had mothers and fathers and wives and husbands and children and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and, of course, friends.  They loved, they worked, they played, they enjoyed holidays and walks in the park on a Sunday afternoon where the kids might feed the ducks or the squirrels.  They quietly embraced the dignity of their own selves, just as we all try to do. They were proud of their families and their jobs and professions.  And then they came. The other people. The ones in power. The ones who had the law on their side and the people following them willing to carry it out, no matter how heinous; even willing to commit torture and murder under the “rule of law”.

Can you imagine having your very self  stripped away with such indifferent, arrogant disdain?  Can you imagine having your own children bludgeoned to death right in front of you as you are forced to watch, helpless to do a thing about it.  This treatment of human beings by other human beings went on for over 12 years.  And through all of the Godless depravity that filled the very hearts and souls of those carrying out this abhorrent treatment of their fellow human beings there were  many stories of the love and kindness and respect for life that had been embraced by the victims themselves.  Many who offered this Godly assistance to others were tortured and murdered for it. Let me tell you about one of them.

His name was Otto Neururer. He was from Austria and was a Catholic priest. Father Neururer was the very first priest to die in a Nazi concentration camp. What was his “crime”?  Well, he was a parish priest when a young woman came to him for advice about whether or not she should marry a divorced man.  The man had a shady past and Father Neururer advised her against the marriage.  The man reported the priest to his friend, who was a party leader in the area.  Father Neururer was promptly arrested and charged with “slander to the detriment of German marriage”.  He was sent to Dachau, the first concentration camp established by the Nazis. From there he was sent to Buchenwald which was under the command of Martin Sommer aka “The Hangman of Buchenwald”.

Father Neururer performed a “forbidden” baptism while at Buchenwald and was sent to the punishment block.  Martin Sommer had the priest hanged upside down and left him that way until he died on May 30, 1940—all for performing a baptism.  He was 58-years old.  Father Otto Neururer was beatified and declared Blessed Otto Neururer by Pope John Paul II in 1996.

Blessed Otto Neururer, thank you.  Please pray for us  asking God to hear our prayers and give us the resolve to teach our children  so that future generations may always be prepared to fight such evil before it rears its demonic head.

Satan Smiles as Political Correctness Conquers the Church of England

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by Larry Peterson

 In the traditional form of baptism the Church of England has always asked the parents and godparents to “reject the devil”.  Now, in keeping with the sophisticated and upscale politically correct world of the 21st century there is a new format for the ceremony.  An optional, alternative text has been introduced that allows for the name of Satan to be eliminated so no-one is “offended”, including the Demon in Chief.  Oh yeah, they kind of left the word “sin” out of the new format too.  Fascinating stuff, don’t you think.  If you think there is no devil and that “evil” is just some abstract concept based on what we as individuals think is right or wrong, you do not have to mention any of that at the Baptismal ceremony.  Golly gee, we must not hurt anyone’s feelings, including our own and  especially Beelzebub’s.  (I’m not sure if this is true but I heard that some satanist told the Church of England’s hierarchy that his boss, Asmodeus,  had a whole bunch of  lawyers ready to go to court to sue if the church kept using his name without authorization.)  I cannot help but wonder if John the Baptist had people come up to him before he dunked them in the river Jordan and first ask if they could forget the “Satan and sin” thing and only worry about committing the sin of NOT recycling used newspaper?” I would think not.

I think I am being somewhat flippant here because this seems to me to be so out of whack with reality.  As a Catholic I know for sure that in the Rite of Baptism and in the renewal of Baptismal vows the following words are used: “Do you renounce Satan?”   The answer is, “I do.”  “And all his works?”—-“I do.”  “And all his empty show (promises)?”—-“I do.”   This is cut in stone. The traditional form for the Church of England uses the words, “reject the devil”. The person answering does not say, “Uh, well, I’m not sure” or “Um, Nah, I don’t think so.”  When you are baptized, whether in a Catholic church or in another christian church, you accept God, His Son, Jesus, and reject Satan.  End of story.  Using the new, alternative text  all  the person has to do is “reject evil”. It is up to the person. But what is evil?

I was always under the impression that the Bible was used as the pathway to what is good and evil and right and wrong. Remember Moses and those tablets God gave him on Mount Sinai? How about  Jesus giving us the two GREAT commandments about “loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself” and that other one about “turning the other cheek”. Things like that were used as the basis for our moral compass and the churches were the universities that disseminated this information to their spiritually ignorant pupils.

But now we live in a new, secular world where “relatavism” rules. In this world “good and evil” are reversed. “Good” is anything that satisfies your natural appetites. “Evil” is anything that tells you NO. “Evil” also attempts to lay waste to a hated word that keeps trying to stay in its world.  That word is morality.  Oh, religion promotes that word, doesn’t it? Why, the nerve of that sanctimonious institution.  In the “goodworld of evil” Satan (aka Lucifer, Mammon, Leviathan, and others mentioned) is a mythological character dreamed up to keep folks under control and living in fear, and the Bible is a bunch of outdated rants written by former slaves and sheepherders without any education. Even some modern-day pundits and TV personalities have called Christians, “idiots” for believing all that “nonsense”. But we Christians (and Jews too) have always had our churches and synagogues as our guides, our lighthouses if you will,  guiding us through the stormy seas of  “good and evil”. We knew what “good and evil” was and we could choose which way to navigate our personal ship. The light shined brightly and the more one followed it the brighter it became.

But now, a Christian church has folded. It has been swallowed up by the powerful seas of pride and ego. The secular fools who approved this and who think they “know best” have been duped by the empty promises of self-gratification. They would rather avoid hurting someone’s feelings than stand true to the church they are supposed to represent and defend. They are cowards.  They have allowed the  light from their beacon to be extinguished. Satan smiles. Even he did not think it would be this easy.