The Many Crimes of Acquiescence

Although I have gained much from my father throughout his life, during the last year I've been helping him write his recollections of a brief two year period of military service that began in June 1944. He explained to me that shortly after the war ended, his unit came to the small Village of Ludwigslust, where the German SS had nearby established the Wobbelin concentration camp earlier that year. One day the soldiers in his unit were asked if they wanted to visit the recently emancipated camp, and of course, he volunteered. The camp had been liberated by the 8th Infantry and 82nd Airborne Divisions on May 2, 1945.  He was told that prisoners there were ill-fed and were literally worked to death.  When my dad visited the camp, he saw several human corpses and several emaciated former prisoners.  The Army was feeding the survivors, and transferring them to army barracks, where conditions were much better.  The Army officer in charge was directing the captured German soldiers and village residents to exhume the bodies, load them onto horse drawn wagons, and to bury them in the village square. 

Wikipedia provided an entry on Wobbelin that included the photo above and the eulogy spoken by the US Army chaplain.

The crimes here committed in the name of the German people and by their acquiescence were minor compared to those to be found in concentration camps elswhere in Germany.  Here there were no gas chambers, no crematoria; these men of Holland, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and France were simply allowed to starve to death.  Within four miles of your comfortable homes 4,000 men were forced to live liek animals, deprived even of the food you would give to your dogs.  In three weeks 1,000 of these men were starved to death; 800 of them wre buried in pits in the nearby woods.  These 200 who lie before us in these graves were found piled four and five feet high in one building and lying with the sick and dying in other buildings.

The citizens of Ludquislit got their wake up call from the chaplain far too late to undo the many crimes that their acquiescence had contributed to.  

What crimes are being committed in our community? Do we choose to be aware of them, and do what's in our power to turn back the many evils that result in crimes?  I feel that too many of us slumber in acquiescence, choosing to be amused by a host of things that don't weigh much on the scales of eternity.  What would it take for us to awake from our slumber?  What if, each week citizens of our county were marched through the county morgue to view the bodies of those who had perished on our streets from violence of one sort or another?  What if each week the fetal human remains from abortions were prominently displayed in glass jars for all to view?  Or what if at the end of each school year a parade were to be held who's participants included the students who had failed to reach minimum proficiency standards, along with the parents, teachers and administrators who had failed them?  I am not suggesting that we conduct any of these activities but it does not change the fact that these and other crimes are occurring in part from our own acquiescence.  Will we face the crimes of acquiescence, or like the villagers of Ludquislit, will we participate in the crimes. 

Jesus who called us to himself and put us back into a right relationship with God, also calls us to live out the gospel.  I have hope that as Christians and churches live out the gospel in our community that the crimes of acquiescence will diminish as the truth and love of the gospel is lived out.  But it has to begin with me.