Social Justice
Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing clearly the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’s sake. For it is the God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:1-6
STORY
Eva Fahidi was born in Debrecen, Hungary in 1925. Her father, Dezso, founded a lumber yard with his brother. Her mother, Irma, was a well-organized woman with an affinity for animals. When Eva was 11, her father converted the family from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. This did not protect the family from being marked as a Jewish family by the Nazis. In 1944 they were rounded up and deported to Birkrnau concentration camp. At the camp over 50 of Eva’s immediate and extended family members perished, with her being the only survivor.
After the war ended in 1945, Fahidi kept her experiences largely to herself for more than a half-century. Then, in 2003, on the anniversary of that day on the ramp when she last saw her family members, she visited the Birkenau site and was disappointed to find it more like a tourist attraction than a solemn place of remembrance.
On that day she committed herself to telling her story and to helping younger generations understand what had gone on at the camp and in the Holocaust in general. Over the next 20 years, until her death, she spoke to countless schoolchildren and worked with young volunteers who collected Holocaust remembrances from survivors. She appeared at anniversary observances marking the liberation of Auschwitz and other occasions and spoke to legislative bodies. She testified at war crime trials.
Besides her speaking engagements and memoir, Fahidi found an unusual vehicle for sharing her Holocaust story: dance. She had enjoyed dancing as a teenager, and while interned in the labor camp, she and other young women used dance to get through their days. For her 90th birthday, she created a dance piece she called Sea Lavender or the Euphoria of Being, in which she and a dancer 60 years her junior, Emese Cuhorka, engaged in a 100-minute performance that mixed dance and dialogue as it brought out Fahidi’s Holocaust memories.
In her memoir, The Soul of Things: Memoir of a Youth Interrupted, she recalled the harrowing experience of being deported. After living a carefree life, she went on to relate “My youth came to an abrupt end on the 1st of July, 1944, on the ramp of Birkenau. The life I have described above was gone in the split second it takes to wave a hand – Mengele’s motion that ordered me into one line and the rest of my family into the other.”
She expressed the motivation to embark on a campaign as a Holocaust survivor when she wrote in her memoir, “The ashes of my immediate family were dumped in the nearby swamps, and so were the ashes of my extended family, and if I say they are 50 in number, I am not far off the mark. I can’t help thinking that I have deserted them, and that my place should be with them, one more handful of dust in the swamps of Birkenau.”
In her memoir she also shared that she carried her grief with her throughout her long life, when she wrote, “The cliché that time heals all wounds is a lie. It depends on the wound. There are wounds that never heal.”
DEVOTION
In our reading this morning, Paul declares that he is a dedicated servant. He affirms that he will continue an uncompromising witness to the gospel message. He publicizes that he is unflinching when confronted by adversaries.
Paul articulates that his battle, as it is a battle of all believers, is with Satan.
Satan is “the god of this world who has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.” Individuals do not believe in the gospel message and have never accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior in order to maintain their residence in this world and not the next. Their understanding of endorsing a spiritual life has been “veiled” by Satan’s deceit. More to the fact, they enjoy living in the flesh, as opposed to dwelling in the Spirit. They chose to live in “darkness” even though “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” surrounds them.
As a believer, along with the Apostle Paul, we know that Christ has entered into our domain and that “Light will shine out of darkness.” It is our calling to remove the “veil” from unbelievers that they may be bathed in the Light.
As long as Satan rules this earthly domain there will be darkness. There will be estrangement in families and discord at work, communities will suffer strife and congregations will endure apostasy, and there will always be a Holocaust.
The movie Sarah’s Key is based on the novel of the same title. The movie recounts the true story of the Vel’ d’Hiy Roundup of Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris on July 16&17,1942. The film alternates between a young girl, Sarah Starzynski, and a journalist, Julia Jarmond, who in 2009 is researching Sarah’s story. The film authenticates the participation of the bureaucracy in Vichy France in the removal of Jewish citizens. The film also highlights French citizens who hid and protected Sarah from French authorities.
Kristin Thomas, an English actress who lives in Paris, is aware of the story of the Vel’ d’Hiy Roundup. She walks past buildings that have plaques on them with the names of the children that were taken from their homes. Sarah, in the novel, is one of the children taken to the concentration camps during the roundup. When Thomas was asked why she wanted to play the role of the reporter Julia who is investigating the tragedy, the mother of three replied, “I wanted to tell the story.”
Let us lift the veil and bring forth justice.