German-born Alexander Dietze and his wife Cäcilia have been helping and serving Holocaust survivors in Israel for 10 years.
As a Christian living in Germany, he said, he read about the Jewish people, in the Bible, but living in Israel amidst the people that the whole Bible is written about, is something else entirely!
“One day, a Holocaust survivor told me, ‘You know, you can tell me everything, but show me your deeds and I (will) tell you who you are.’ And that makes a big impact,” Dietze told CBN News.
“I said, ‘Yeah, what I should do,’ and then it's tied to how they see me. Ah, you believe in Jesus? Ah, you are a Catholic. And I was put in a box. I don't want to be in a box,” Dietze said. “So I learned how they see me as a Christian. And I started to think. And I found out that our history as Christians is the worst, so to say, for the Jewish people.”
“Under the Christians, the Jewish people suffered more than under any other religion. This was devastating. And even to see our reformer, Martin Luther in Germany, who really had an awakening of being, you know, in the Spirit. But what happened at the end of his life, he was so antisemitic. And the Nazis, they could build their ideology on his spiritual ground. This is reality,” Dietz explained.
He wondered how can the church come out from this legacy.
“I cannot say, ‘Oh, it was in the Middle Ages,’ and it's not. No, we are carrying this as a load on us because in the name of Jesus Christ, I mean, terrible things happened to the Jews. This was devastating but eye-opening and I said, okay, ‘What is the purpose?’"
“I mean, this needs to go up to Hashem, to God, and he should tell us what to do because I believe there's a solution,” he said.
Earlier, Dietze, got the shock of his life after becoming a Christian in his 20s, when his beloved grandfather wanted to give him, his Nazi SS medals as a heritage! He didn’t even know that his grandfather had been a Nazi.
Dietze said the time we are living in after the October 7th massacre in Israel is very similar to the days that pre-dated World War II.
“I believe we are in the same time, like in 1939 (or) 36. You know, there was a big, magazine called Sturma. It was the propaganda magazine of Hitler's regime. We have it today. The lies are our propaganda, the hatred against Jews. It's the same. Social media. Lies. Everything. It's the same kind of events like in Nazi Germany, but on a global scale,” Dietze emphasized.
He said there are many things that Christians must do now.
“If I bring it to the point (of): who are we? And when we look in the Bible, there's a scripture in Isaiah 60 that touched me and gave (paved the way) for my path. It says, 'The sons of those who oppressed you, Israel, will come and bow down and serve you.' Isaiah 60:14. I am literally a son of someone who oppressed the Jewish people, and the prophet is prophesying that one day in this place today I (would) come and serve the Jewish people. So, there is a redemptive, spark. We have to find the spark because God is sovereign and God is beyond our imagination,” he said emphatically.
“There is something worse like, look at us. Eighty years ago, my nation was Hamas. Now I'm in the field with IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers and we (are) fighting this Hamas today. There is a Tikun, there is a reparation, but there are holy sparks but we have to search for it and ask God to reveal it in any individual,” he explained.
Dietze said the best answer at this time is repentance.
“I think we are living in a time of repentance and not only repentance for what we did wrong, but our attitude. It's a time of return. It's a time of, tishuvah. And this is what Jesus, what Yeshua said. Make tishuvah (repentance) because the Kingdom is near.
“It starts with everyone individually. What does it mean? It doesn't mean only to say, 'I'm sorry for this and that,' it says we have to come back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” he said.
“We have to find who is the Father that Yeshua was calling to. It is the God of Israel. Who is Yeshua? Who is Messiah? It goes very well into the individual relationship. And I think this is the healthy place where it has to start individually for every believer. 'Who are you, Father? Who are you, Mashiach? Who I am? And what can I do?'” he added.
Originally from Webpage "CBN News"
CCD reprinted with permission
