As UK Christians remember the Holocaust this week (27 January marking the day in 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated), they have been reminded that it was spawned by godlessness and the rejection of faith.

Amalek Cruelty

Steven Jaffe,¹ a member of the UK's Jewish Board of Deputies, was addressing a largely Christian audience at a church in Sheffield, Yorkshire. He said the exodus from Egypt was immediately followed by the battle with Amalek, who had no reason to attack Israel. There was no territorial dispute or history of conflict, for example. And they attacked the sick and the elderly – those who were most vulnerable (Deut 25:17-18).

"The conflict with Amalek is not over", he said. Amalek denied God and his power in the same way the Nazis did, and the latter mirrored their lack of mercy. Jaffe recalled that Britain's former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sachs, was once asked where God was during the Holocaust, to which he is said to have replied: "Where was man?"

Growing Godlessness

My worry is that the growing influence of rank atheism in Britain and Europe will have a bearing on the future of anti-Semitism. The poisonous view that God does not exist naturally leads to godless behaviour and thought, even among those previously tutored in godly ways. The result is that even some who claim to have faith, and who perhaps stand in pulpits, start believing the lie that is proclaimed so often through almost every strand of media.

My worry is that the growing influence of rank atheism in Britain and Europe will have a bearing on the future of anti-Semitism.

It is indeed frustrating that, as fast as we spread word about the horrors of the Holocaust, vowing that it should never be repeated, the vile infestation of anti-Semitism creeps into every crack and crevice of our broken society, as the walls of our Judeo-Christian civilisation come crashing down around us.

Loathing of Israel

In polite Britain, hatred of Jews is generally not expressed openly, but often takes the form of a loathing of Israel, so that the very mention of the Jewish state is enough to raise the hackles not only of the politically-aware man in the street, but of the semi-biblically aware man in the pew.

As Jaffe told the Bush Fire Church, such loathing cannot be explained in rational terms. But he was spot on, I believe, in linking the phenomenon with a society that has thrown God out of the window. Pledges of never letting it happen again are not enough, in my opinion; without a recovery of faith in the God of Israel, there can be no guarantee that another holocaust won't take place.

In recent months, Iran has been boasting of how its nuclear deal last year "has provided an historic opportunity to...face threats posed by the Zionist entity"². It is well to recall that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, collaborated with Hitler, setting the stage for today's jihad against Israel.³ And yet, bizarrely, former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and current Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas have both publicly denied that the Holocaust ever took place.⁴

In polite Britain, hatred of Jews is generally not expressed openly, but often takes the form of a loathing of Israel.

Holocaust memorial, Berlin. See Photo Credits.

Light in the Darkness

Against such a dark background, however, there is plenty of encouragement. The Sheffield gathering heard much about the heroic acts of so-called 'righteous Gentiles' like Sir Nicholas Winton, who rescued 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in 1938. Generations of people – almost 7,000 of some of the world's greatest doctors, lawyers, teachers and inventors – owe their lives to the act of one man's efforts to help Jewish children escape the Nazis.

Last year in Leeds the Shalom Declaration was launched, with hundreds signing a commitment to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, fight anti-Semitism and promote solidarity with Israel. Steven Jaffe himself said that this is sending out a clear message of Christian support for Britain's Jewish community. "There isn't a corner of the British Isles that the Shalom Declaration has not been signed", he said.

On the faith front, we were told that "there are more Jews learning the Torah today in Israel that at any time in our history", preparing them well for the great event we are perhaps soon to witness when Jesus reveals himself on a grand scale to his brothers in the flesh.

Forgiveness Vital

Though many Jews quite understandably have a problem with this, especially with the Holocaust in mind, we are reminded that the key is forgiveness. When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, he had already long since forgiven them for acting treacherously against him.

Pledges of never letting it happen again are not enough: without a recovery of faith in the God of Israel, there can be no guarantee that another holocaust won't take place.

British television viewers were recently treated to a remarkable Channel 4 documentary, The Girl Who Forgave the Nazis,⁵ recounting the story of how Hungarian Jew Eva Kor, now 81, a former inmate of Auschwitz, has publicly forgiven 94-year-old Oskar Groenig, the death camp's former accountant, who was recently sentenced to four years in jail for his part in the Nazi's evil scheme.

Eva and her twin sister Miriam were experimented on by the infamous Dr Josef Mengele, but survived the camp. Eva said: "It's time to forgive, but not forget...I believe that forgiveness is such a powerful thing...and I want everybody to help me sow these seeds of peace throughout the world."

This takes amazing courage. But it is worth remembering that Jesus, our Messiah, made the first move when he prayed as he died in agony on a cross in Jerusalem: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34)

"Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases..." (Ps 103:2-3)

"Seek the Lord while he may be found...for he will freely pardon." (Isa 55:6-7)

Charles Gardner is author of Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com.

References

1 Jaffe works with the British Board of Deputies as a Communal Engagement with Israel Consultant. See Board of Deputies website. Jaffe has previously reported elsewhere on Christian support for Israel.

2 Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Beirut, 12 August 2015. See Times of Israel coverage here, written by Newman/AFP.

3 Soakell, D. Christian Friends of Israel's Watching Over Zion newsletter, 21 January.

4 Ibid.

5 Originally broadcast on Channel 4, Saturday 23 January, 8pm. Still available on 4oD.

On this day 70 years ago, 20 of Germany's Nazi leaders went on trial before an International Military Tribunal, to be held to account for their war crimes. To mark this occasion, we are publishing a personal memoir of the Nuremberg Trials written by Patricia Vander Elst, who was present as an interpreter.

Introduction

In her article below, written not long before her death in July 2005 and published originally by the International Association of Conference Interpreters, my mother, Patricia Vander Elst, describes how, at the tender age of 21, she began her lifelong career as a freelance interpreter, working in the interpreters' booth at the famous 1945-1946 Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. She worked then under her maiden name of Patricia Jordan, and together with her other interpreter colleagues present at that Trial, pioneered the then novel system of simultaneous interpretation that has been in general use throughout the world ever since.

After the Nuremberg Trial, my mother continued working as a freelance interpreter for a variety of private and international organisations, including UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the various institutions of the European Union. By the time she died at the age of 80, still working, she had become a widely respected and legendary veteran of the interpreting profession. But what was even more interesting about her was the fact that she spent the first 14 years of her life growing up in first Weimar and then Nazi Germany. Her many vivid memories of that fascinating era included attending the same primary school as Field Marshall Von Hindenberg's grandchildren, and witnessing the terrible aftermath of 'Kristallnacht' in November 1938.

As she told me on more than one occasion, her observation of life in pre-war Nazi Germany, which included her own personal conflict with one Nazi teacher, innoculated her for life against anti-Semitism, taught her an enduring lesson about the need to think for oneself and resist indoctrination, and made her a passionate supporter of Israel. I was and will always remain immensely proud of her.

Philip Vander Elst

The Nuremberg trial

The War was over. An International Military Tribunal had been set up in Nuremberg to try the leading Nazi war criminals. The Main Trial lasted from November 1945 until the verdicts on 30th September 1946 - and I was present during the last four months.

After going to school in Berlin where I lived with my English parents until a few days before the German attack on Poland, I ended up in Switzerland where I saw out the war and spent my last six years of formal education at French-speaking schools and universities.

In Nuremberg, the Trial was being conducted in English, French, Russian and German and was using the novel and largely untried system of simultaneous interpretation. Due to the length of the trial, some interpreters were leaving and had to be replaced. Monitors were dispatched to look for new talent. A test was organised at the Geneva University School of Interpreters which, to my surprise, I passed. We had learnt consecutive interpretation only and to find myself speaking into a microphone at the same time that I was listening to a disembodied voice through earphones was thoroughly disconcerting.

With the ink of my degree scarcely dry, I set out for Nuremberg. It was my first job and, though I did not know it at the time, also my biggest. I went into it with the innocent enthusiasm of my 21 years, looking forward to the freedom from home, the glamour of a foreign assignment and the lure of the unknown. Four months later, the Trial over, I left: ten years older, a great deal wiser, and, indeed, an interpreter.

It was my first job – and my biggest. I went into it with innocent enthusiasm and left a great deal wiser.

Nuremberg Courthouse, see Photo Credits.En-route, I got lost near Frankfurt in a muddle of travel vouchers, curfews and non-existent trains. When I did reach Nuremberg, I was billeted at the Grand Hotel where I was allowed to remain for the duration. I spent a week in the public gallery listening to the proceedings in the Court Room. Then, after a brief test in the booth during a lunch-break, I was told I would be starting in earnest the following day. I felt it was a matter of sink or swim. I swam.

In the Court Room

The lay-out of the Court Room was simple and compact. The accused faced the judges, with assorted German counsel and court reporters in between. Our four booths were at right angles and in very close proximity to the defendants. We could watch them and they often watched us. Facing the interpreters were three sets of Prosecution tables which made up the fourth side of the Court, with the Press and public beyond.

By today's sophisticated technical standards, the booths and the equipment were primitive. We sat in three-sided glass boxes open at the top. Because of the tight fit, it was impossible to leave the booths except during breaks when we would shuffle out in reverse order to the way we had shuffled in. The earphones were clumsy things and each booth of three interpreters had to share one hand-held microphone which was passed to whoever was working from the language just being spoken.

Learning Fast

The system broke down quite frequently and the sound could be bad, but we learned to improvise. Looking back, I am amazed how well we coped and how quickly we acquired the new skills. One of the things we learnt to do fast and well was sight-reading. By the time I got to Nuremberg, it was usual for untranslated prepared speeches to be given to us in writing, which was enormously helpful.

Any misgivings I had about my ability to meet the challenge would vanish as soon as I walked into the booth, much like an actor shedding stage-fright when setting foot on the boards. The monitors would keep a constant close watch on our performance and would tell us where we went wrong or how to improve our delivery. I was told to pitch my voice lower, which I did. Ever since, I have been much aware of the quality of an interpreter's voice and wonder why our occasional screech-owls or excessive regional accents have not been brought to task.

Any misgivings I had about my ability would vanish as soon as I walked into the booth, like an actor shedding stage-fright when setting foot on the boards.

Interpreters at the Nuremberg Trials. See Photo Credits.

We worked two days in a row and had the third day off. One team was on for 1 1/2 hours in the morning and again for 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon. While a second team took over for the other half of the morning and afternoon, we would sit in a nearby room which was equipped with ear-phones and where we could follow the proceedings in the Court. There it was that I listened to Lord Justice Lawrence handing down the sentences. The room was packed then, the atmosphere quite as tense and as solemn as in the Court Room itself.

Team Spirit

The interpreters were, I think, quite a pleasant cosmopolitan lot; a mixture of ages and nationalities, professions and opinions - including several refugees and Jews. Living amidst a sullen native population, in a town that was just a heap of rubble, was stressful, as indeed was the never-ending recital of horrors in the Court Room. I learnt to ignore the first and overcame the strain in Court by concentrating on the work itself.

I was greatly helped in this by the remarkable team spirit among the interpreters and by the close and, as it turned out, life-long friendship with some of them. We let off steam dancing the night away in the Marble Room of the Grand Hotel. We had a lot of fun, an indispensable antidote to the Court Room blues.

The Trials

In Court, whatever our private thoughts, it was necessary to remain neutral when working. From being a blur of concentrated human malice the defendants, little by little, emerged as individuals. One could even admire Goering for his intelligence and dignity and share his open contempt for the slimy Streicher. Kaltenbrunner scared me, he was so palpably evil. The closing speech Hess made left me in no doubt that he was completely mad. We all liked Fritzsche who was only there as a substitute for his dead master Goebbels, and we were glad he was acquitted.

From being a blur of concentrated human malice the defendants, little by little, emerged as individuals.

After the verdicts and the ensuing release of tension, I had had enough of Nuremberg. Whereas I had been working from French into English at the Main Trial, I was supposed to transfer to the German booth for the Subsequent Proceedings. I was rescued by the Chief Interpreter of UNESCO who selected me, along with a few others, to work at the First General Conference in Paris (English/French consecutive). I was released from my Nuremberg contract and left.

Passing into History

I returned to Nuremberg recently. The town has been rebuilt, the scars of war no longer visible. The Court Room, after 54 years, seems smaller. A wall now partitions it where the front of the public gallery had been. The large dock has been rebuilt for fewer defendants. The oppressive dark wood panelling and heavy marble door frames remain, though, as does the small lift door at the back of the dock through which the Nazi leaders were daily brought to account. But I had no feeling of past personal involvement. The Nuremberg Trial had become history.

Patricia Vander Elst

Our thanks go to Patricia's son, Philip, for providing us with her account, as well as to the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), through which it was first published (see here).

'Mission at Nuremberg' by Tim Townsend (SPCK, 308 pages, available from the publisher for £12.99 + FREE UK delivery)

This book tells the compelling story of Lutheran minister Henry Gerecke, the army chaplain who was sent to save the souls of the Nazis incarcerated at Nuremberg. In what was the most difficult mission that Gerecke was recruited to fulfil, he ministered to 21 Nazi leaders as they awaited trial, leaders such as Goering, Keitel, and von Ribbentrop.

Scrupulous Research

Townsend has clearly undertaken a large amount of scrupulous research and he includes many first-hand accounts, including interviews with still-living participants. In some ways his approach is rather 'bitty' but he does engage us in the events by taking us inside the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, into the cells of the accused and into the courtroom itself as the drama unfolds. The book also contains 16 pages of black and white photos.

Moving Accounts

One of its distinctive features is the inclusion of several marvellous vignettes of 'second tier' personalities and of the many generally unknown people who feature in the overall story. Who usually pays any attention to the wives and families of the convicted Nazis?

Townsend observes that hundreds of Nazis had been hanged long before the 21 notable defendants in Nuremberg faced their convictions. There are also good pen portrait summaries of the lives of these men, as well as accounts of the wretchedness of life in the bombed city and a moving focus on the horrendousness of Mauthausen.

For most of us history stops with the end of the Second World War in 1945. Once Hitler commits suicide in the bunker all is over. One of the chief delights of Townsend's book is to redress our knowledge and perceptions in this area. As in other recent history publications, the author seeks to awaken us to the harsh realities of the years of recovery that Europe has had to endure in order to be where it is today. Many people had hard and difficult lives post-1945.

For most of us, history stops at the end of WWII. But Townsend challenges this perception, awakening us to the harsh realities of post-1945 Europe.

Theological Reflections

In the second half of his book Townsend breaks the narrative (which does suffer throughout from jumping around chronologically) in three separate places with theological reflections on the source of evil, Luther's doctrine of consubstantiation and the nature of forgiveness. Christian readers may want to debate some of his affirmations: "forgiveness precedes repentance" (p286); "everyone is saved" (p287); "if God is master of both absolute good and absolute evil, he must also claim those of us who choose darkness" (p221).

But overall this is a book that causes you to think, which makes it a worthwhile contribution at this time of the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials.

Christian readers may want to debate some of his affirmations – this is a book that causes you to think.

More information can be found on the book's website, missionatnuremberg.com.

In the light of the recent death of Sir Nicholas Winton at age 106, Charles Gardner shares the story of John Fieldsend, rescued from Auschwitz through Sir Winton's Kindertransport project and taken in by a Sheffield family...

Heini and Arthur Fiege

Snatched from the jaws of the Nazis in the nick of time, Heini Fiege escaped to England to begin a new life. It was a traumatic parting for Heini and his brother Arthur, aged seven and ten at the time, but their parents could see the writing on the wall and willingly gave up their boys for adoption to save them from the horrors of Auschwitz, where they were to perish within a few short years.

Heini and Arthur thus became beneficiaries in 1938 of the Kindertransport project of Sir Nicholas Winton, who died on Wednesday aged 106. A young stockbroker at the time, he arranged the rescue of thousands of Jewish children from Czechoslovakia and other places under German occupation.

Despite the heartbreak, which affected him for much of his life, Heini and his brother found new hope as they grew up in Sheffield comforted by the love and devotion of a Christian couple, Les and Vera Cumpston, and their son John.

Growing up in Sheffield

Shortly after their arrival in Sheffield, foster father Les became the butt of neighbourhood jokes as he set about building an elaborate air-raid shelter in the garden of their home in the southern suburb of Handsworth. But of course, like Noah building an ark on dry ground, he was thoroughly vindicated when the city was heavily blitzed by the Luftwaffe on the nights of 12th and 15th December 1940.

Les was under-manager of Tinsley Park Colliery at the time and later moved to Worksop following promotion to Inspector of Mines and Quarries for Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

Following the lead of his older brother, Heini anglicized his name to John Fieldsend, preferring the English equivalent of his second name Hans. Not surprisingly perhaps in view of his parents' example, John also discovered a personal faith in Christ and, although he qualified as an engineer with practical experience of working on aircraft during his time in the RAF, he felt a strong call to preach the gospel full-time and became a successful Anglican vicar overseeing a thriving church in Bayston Hill, Shropshire.

Dwelling on his past was difficult to face at first, but in time he felt drawn to re-focus on his Jewish roots, referring to himself as a Messianic Jew – one who follows Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) as Messiah.

He later became involved in the leadership of the Church's Ministry among Jewish people (CMJ), a 200-year-old Anglican society dedicated to the spiritual re-birth of Israel. Following his time at CMJ he joined the Ministry Team at Moggerhanger Park, home of the original magazine Prophecy Today, taking responsibility for developing the work of the Centre for Biblical and Hebraic Studies.

50th Anniversary Reunion

The Jewish aspect of his identity had taken a leap forward when TV personality Esther Rantzen arranged an emotional 50th anniversary reunion between Sir Nicholas Winton and some of those children he rescued as part of her very popular That's Life! programme.

Sir Nicholas had kept forged copies of the children's identity documents (forged to speed up the process of officialdom for what he knew to be a dire emergency). And these were used to track down the likes of John, who had lost most of his relatives in the Holocaust.

A Wondering Jew

In his recently published book, A Wondering Jew (reviewed here), John recalls visits made to the Children's Memorial in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem (see picture opposite), which commemorates the one-and-a-half million children who died at the hands of the Nazis.

As we listened to the names of the children being read out on an endlessly looping tape – which took several days to go round – I realized that had my journey from Czechoslovakia been delayed by only about five weeks, my name would have been on that tape! It was a very dramatic experience...

John's ministry has taken him all over Britain and to many parts of the world, and on one occasion in South Africa, after sharing his story and speaking about Jewish and Gentile reconciliation through Jesus, he was approached by a man who "rather hesitantly confessed that he had spent the war years as a member of the Hitler Youth...This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that I had been challenged to practice what I had just preached!"

John and his wife Elizabeth celebrated their golden wedding in 2011. Now 84, John is a regular speaker at the Holocaust Museum in Laxton, near Newark in Nottinghamshire.