A 98-year-old Holocaust survivor, Elle Blumenthal, told a Cape Town gathering last night how she literally escaped from a Nazi death camp gas chamber when its doors, which had been closed already, were opened due to new orders coming through regarding the number of people to be gassed that day.
She shared her testimony at the Desire of all Nations Church at an event attended by about 1 000 people to remember the Holocaust in which Nazi Germany systematically murdered six million people for the “crime” of being Jewish.
- Advertisement -
Vivienne Myburgh, South African national director of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, who was one of the speakers at the event, said it was arranged to remember the Holocaust and to challenge the Church.
- Advertisement -
The event was held at a time when anti-semitism is on the rise in Europe and America and widespread in SA — and according to US author, professor, radio host and Messianic Jewish leader Dr Michael Brown there are signs of a rise in “Christian anti-semitism” in the US.
Brown, who authored a book Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the ‘Church’ and the Jewish People, which documents church complicity in persecution of Jews throughout history, notes that today, “Evangelical Christians are Israel’s best friends”.
- Advertisement -
But he concludes:”It’s time we wake up to these harsh, disturbing realities and uproot these insidious lies [anti-semitic writings and statements by certain influential Christians] once and for all. Antisemitism has no place in the heart or mind of a true Christian.”
