Where can you hide?

During WW2, the Nazi searched every corner for the last Jew who remained in the land of Germany. When found, they are either sent to the concentration camp or the gas chamber, where they blow their last breath. Around one million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and Anne Frank was one of them. I read her diary many years ago. It was published in the year 1947. I personally believed it was the best way to emotionally relate to someone who lives during wartime and their fate who cruelly swung them around. Anne was a cheerful girl, fearful but optimistically curious about tomorrow. The war has killed everyone in her family, including her except for her father, Otto Frank. Escaping the Nazi pawn, he survived to tell the horror of WW2 and the reality of the Holocaust. 

It was unfortunate for this to happen to an ethnic group, but sadly, Jews did the same to the Canaanites when they entered the land of the Philistines. The prophet Moses claimed to receive revelation from God to perform a similar ethnic cleansing that not even livestock are allowed to survive upon their entry. They are many ways of looking at this, but their persecution by Nazis later unavoidably conjoined with the sentiment passed down from the land of Canaan from two thousand years ago. The logic of Nazis was simple as if Jews could occupy Canaan by performing ethnic cleansing, they could do precisely the same when equipped with weapons. An eye for an eye, this time, the Nazis acted first.

The bottom line is this is war. Precisely, no one in this generation should be blamed. However, even the Bible itself advocates the idea of the generational curse that lasted for seven generations. Seven is just a number for many, but in Hebrew, it means forever. In fact, even today in Hindu society, the child is often judged by who their parents are. A century ago, the child’s fate was predestined even before being born due to the “caste” system.

In war, it changed how we looked at certain people groups. Japanese who won the Sino-Japanese battles three times are viewed by the Chinese as monsters due to Nanjing massacres and perverts as their forefathers advertised the practice of “comfort ladies” whom many were kidnapped from China. The Jews are seen as parasites as history shows wherever they inhabited, they monopolized the economy, and there was unceasing war. It was evidenced even in Israel today. Generally speaking, there are coherent trends advocating such behavior, but ultimately, we can’t generalize this based on a few facts in the textbooks. The case of Anne Frank presents the chance that Jews can also be victims during warfare. Thus, losing faith in a particular ethnic/people group or being biased may be the last resort. Inspiringly, despite persecution, the last word of Anne in her diary was:

“As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life, and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things.”

Anne has every reason to lose her faith in humanity. There is no more safe place for her to hide, she has to face it, be it death. She was tortured day in, day out and finally died from exhaustion in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Yet, she learned to appreciate and was able to discover the slightest happiness she could find in her devastated life. 

Living up to certain age, I believed we could relate well to how unfair life could be. We could proceed to play the victim or walk out from it. There exist at least two or more facets in a single matter. There is little absolute truth that is truly worthwhile to hang on to that does not change in life. Even a church or a mosque can be a dangerous place for people. Hillsong Church in Australia has recently been involved in a scandal of trying to cover up sex abuse crime committed by their Bible study leader. Prior to voicing up, the church warned the teenage girl that she would not succeed in the war against the powerful leadership and asked to prioritize the image of the church and Christianity. I was abhorred by the idea. It was selfish and senseless. Covering the ugly truth may not help protect Christianity or the church, but knowing that they tried to threaten and bribe just to cover up will certainly disgust many people.

Gandhi once famously said he likes Jesus Christ. But he doesn’t like Christian or Jesus’ followers. Christianity is one of the most prominent religions today but gradually westernized. It is often wrongly perceived as a western religion despite its origin from the Middle East. As for western culture, it often preached “personal rights,” the importance of “social status,” and “materialism.” Having a sip of taste from these, the better-of-Christian started to promote the idea that wealth as the sole blessing from God instead of peace. The possession of wealth today is often equivalent to God’s blessing, which led to the ordeal that most modern churches are controlled by wealthy, influential people instead of devoted ones. This dilemma has given way to favoritism and uncountable oppression, bullies in the church. One of them I knew was run by elders and deacons who rarely attended church or joined the bible study but happened to be one of the wealthy family members in the church. They slandered, gossiped, lied, and misled people who they would. Denied of their responsibility whenever they wronged, they threatened people with ex-communication or confession in public. They are always protected. They sat high like gods, and no one could really touch them, no matter what they said or did. Very few noticed that they were devils themselves because they could contribute plentifully in monetary-wise.

Due to many disappointments, I have decided to leave the church, though I’m not the first one. The conflict with the family of gods was unresolvable, and the damage done was unmendable. The worse is maybe I cannot unsee it. This is probably the reason why Gandhi went to church only once and died as a non-believer. No matter who we might be, we are not immune from evil plots, and there is nowhere to hide, not even a church or a mosque. We can choose to be resentful and revengeful over wounds people caused us, but we can also be like Anne Frank. What she did was not to run away or to fight. She simply chooses to look at things differently. It may sound silly as it does not solve the problem, but at least she didn’t feel hurt anymore when she could never escape the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Till then