“Never Again.” These words are inscribed on a monument in the Dachau Concentration Camp where tens of thousands of political prisoners were tortured and killed. The evil that occurred during Hitler’s regime is palpable inside the walls, culminating to the crematorium where the dead were incinerated.
On a recent trip to serve our missionaries overseas, I visited this camp. As you walk through the gates, there is a plaque on the entrance that says, “In honor of the 20th Armored Division (Liberators) U.S. 7th Army who participated in the liberation of Dachau concentration camp April 28, 1945.”
What impacted me the most was not inside the camp but the drive through the little town of Dachau. Just a mile down the road, horrific acts were conducted. Its residents turned a deaf ear to the oppression and death that was occurring right under their noses.
The U.S. Army ordered every civilian in Dachau to come to the liberated camp and file through the gas chamber, incinerator, and the room housing the bodies of the dead to see the results of their complacency, apathy, and fear.
If only churches could see the results of their complacency, apathy, and fear. Millions of lives are at risk of facing an eternity without the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, while nice, respectable churchgoers sit in pews and are silent outside the walls.
Thank God for the liberators. The next day following my visit to Dachau, I found myself in a room full of missionaries funded by South Carolina Baptists through the Cooperative Program. These missionaries take the message of the gospel to a part of the world where 2.8 billion people have limited to no access to the gospel.
Never again can we remain silent. Liberate the lost.