Silent Christians

“I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. I attended church since I was a small boy. We had heard the stories of what was happening to the Jews, but like most people today in this country, we tried to distance ourselves from the reality of what was really taking place. What could anyone do to stop it? A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we would hear the whistle from a distance and then the clacking of the wheels moving over the track. We became disturbed when one Sunday we noticed cries coming from the trains that passed by. We grimly realized that the train was carrying Jews. They were like cattle, in those cars. Week after week, that train whistle would blow. We would dread to hear that sound of those old wheels because we knew that the Jews would begin to cry out to us. At our church, it was so terribly disturbing, we could do nothing to help those poor, innocent people yet their screams tormented us. We knew exactly what time the whistle would blow, and we decided that the only way to become so disturbed by the cries was to start singing our hymns. By the time that train came rumbling past the churchyard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears, we'd just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more. Years have passed and no one talks about it much anymore, but I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. I can still hear them crying out for help. God forgive all of us that called ourselves Christians, yet did nothing to intervene.”