Though World War II ended nearly 80 years ago, it still looms large in our imagination. For some reason we are fascinated by World War II. Perhaps it’s because it involved more people, covered more territory, and claimed more lives than any other war in history. Also, it brought out the best and the worst in humanity.
But whatever the reasons, it seems we just can’t get enough about World War II. Second world war movies keep rolling out of Hollywood. The demand for Second World War movies appears unstoppable, and the supply inexhaustible.
And, who can think about that war without thinking of the Holocaust? And nothing, of course, symbolized the Holocaust more than the death camps like this one at Ravensbruck, just north of Berlin. But the most infamous and largest of all the death camps was Auschwitz, situated in western Poland.
Now, the longest serving commandant of that camp was Rudolph Hoess, a leading member of the Nazi Party. After the war ended, he was taken prisoner and convicted by the Polish Supreme National Tribunal for the crimes of overseeing the death of over a million men, women, and children.
And today, many decades after the war ended, tourists young and old, Jews and non-Jews alike visit Auschwitz, as a pilgrimage to this place. It’s a sacred place of remembrance of what happened there, and to the many people who lost their lives there. But imagine visiting this place with the grandson of the ruthless commandant, Rudolph Hoess.
Join me as we look at one of the saddest stories that comes from a totally unexpected source. It’s a story of children who as adults ended up bearing a burden of guilt that never should have been theirs to begin with. And, as we look at their stories, maybe we can think a little more about our own life and the legacy we pass on.
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LONG AND RICH HISTORY
The Jews have a long and rich history going back over four thousand years. Even though they comprise only a very tiny percent of the world’s population – in fact only about 0.2% – they’ve played a significant role in the development of western culture and advances that affect all of us.
Jews are a worldwide group who through descent or conversion are descendants of the ancient Jewish people or Hebrews in the Bible. Today, Israel is the only country in the world where Jews make up the majority of the population. And like any nationality, there are a wide spectrum of beliefs among the Jews.
You have the ultra-orthodox, passionately religious, who are seeking to follow every biblical law as they understand them. Then, there are secular Jews who have a Jewish heritage and identity but have no religious affiliation.
As with any religion, Jews have their own clergy or leaders, called rabbis, who perform weddings, funerals, counseling, and the uniquely Jewish rituals such as the Bar Mitzvah.
AHARON SHEAR YAHSUV
One such rabbi is Aharon Shear-Yahsuv who lives in the Old City of Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous religious books on the Jewish faith.
Interestingly enough, Aharon Shear-Yahsuv was not born into a Jewish home – far from it. He was born in the Ruhr Valley, Germany in 1940 and first saw his father when he was four years old. As an adult, he tried to find answers to the past and what had happened. What he discovered shook him to the core. He found his only solace was converting to Judaism.
Rabbi Aharon Shear-Yashuv is the son of a Nazi; a Waffen-SS officer who served on the eastern front with Hitler’s elite troops. It’s hard to believe that the son of a Nazi officer is a rabbi in Israel.
Now, remember, the SS was an elite branch of the German army in World War II. They were the ones who carried out Hitler’s Final Solution, the genocide of the Jews and any others deemed by the Germans unfit to live. They were also the ones who ran the concentration camps – including this one at Ravensbruck that was set up with ovens, gas chambers and chimneys.
The SS were the ones who, more than any others, carried out the day-by-day killings at places like this. They were known as vicious and brutal murderers, and they sure were hated.
Rabbi Aharon Shear-Yahsuv’s father was one of them.
And so this is a man trying to come to grips with a legacy that he can’t bear. Talk about a rebellion against your family! The son of an SS-officer becoming an orthodox Jewish rabbi, and in Israel of all places!
But he’s not the only one. Other children or grandchildren or relatives of Nazis have also converted to Judaism, and in some cases, they have even moved to Israel. There are accounts of the children of Nazis, including a relative by marriage to Hitler, who as adults had converted to Judaism. It is a kind of atonement for a legacy that they didn’t create, but inherited.
GROWING UP
Theo Hesser was born in Munich, Germany in 1935. His father was a fervent and committed member of the Nazi party and when Theo was 8 years old, he joined the Hitler Youth. When Adolph Hitler came to his hometown of Munich to visit, Theo and his father were at the front of the crowd, reaching out and trying to just touch the Fuhrer’s hand.
He later recalled,
“I know if I was able to shake his hand I probably wouldn’t have washed for a few months.”
The Hitler Youth was like joining the Boy Scouts with the other boys. It was just a normal part of growing up. Propaganda was always there, and you just accepted it as black and white.
As a child Theo remembers he was told that he wasn’t to associate with Jewish people. The only Jewish person he knew was the family doctor, and then one day she suddenly disappeared, but the family never discussed it.
The family lived in Bavaria near the Dachau concentration camp, but as a child, Theo didn’t know anything about what was happening in the nearby camp. Theo was told it was a prison for bad people and the family never mentioned the holocaust. So as a child, Theo just trusted his parent’s word.
Then over the years, as Theo became aware of his parent’s fervent Nazism, and their involvement, it took its toll. He was horrified, and a sense of guilt for his family’s part in the holocaust overcame him. Eventually, as an adult, he converted to Judaism.
Before his conversion, he requested a mikveh, or a ritual bath. This is the precursor to Christian baptism. Now, the idea of mikveh was to wash away previous spiritual impurities, or the bad things in your life. But for Theo it was the pain and the sense of guilt for what had happened in WWII and his family’s involvement.
“I almost nearly drowned myself in the place,” said Theo, “because I felt there was just so much inside me that I needed to wash away.”
HUSBANDS AND FATHERS
Those who have read about World War II will know these names: Adolph Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, Rudolph Hess, and others.
These have been the most hated and vilified men in the 20th century. After all, it is estimated that due to the war that they started, over 50 million people died.
But here’s the thing about many of these men, and untold thousands of others like them. And that is, they were people just like the rest of us. They had fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers. They were husbands to their wives and fathers to their children.
Those involved in the Nazi regime would go to work in the morning, spending the day planning the transport and execution of a few thousand Jews from Hungary, or Poland, or France.
And then they would hop on a tram and get home in time for dinner with the family. And, maybe, they would even read a story to the children before putting them to bed.
Then, finally the war ended, and the regime ended. Yes, at the Nuremberg tribunal some top Nazis were either executed or jailed. Many fled and went into hiding. And some even quietly resumed life in post-war Germany.
Most of the children of these men were too young to have been complicit in their father’s crimes. Some weren’t even born until after the war had ended. But these children, eventually, as adults, had to confront the legacy that their fathers had left them.
Now most of us, as children, adored our fathers. We looked up to and admired our fathers. But can you imagine how these children felt when they found out about their father’s role in the war?
What do you do when your father was Martin Bormann, one of the most notorious Nazis? Martin Bormann Sr. was one of Hitler’s closest confidantes and a key figure behind the concept of the final solution and the Holocaust.
He had been Hitler’s private secretary, and had unrivalled access to him. In fact, Bormann was one of the last Nazis to be with Hitler in the Berlin bunker in the last days, even the last hours of the war.
Some say Bormann had committed suicide in the bunker after Hitler did. Others say he fled to South America or Spain. Some who fled with him claimed that they saw his body on a bridge, killed by nearby Russian troops who probably had no idea who he was.
His personal chauffeur claimed that he saw Martin Bormann, alive and well, in Munich one year after the war ended. No one really knows for certain what happened to him. Martin Bormann was tried, in absentia, at the Nuremberg Trials on October 16, 1946.
SHOCK AND CONFUSION
But Martin Bormann the Nazi, was also Martin Bormann the father. The father of ten children, in fact. And, apparently he was a loving and devoted dad.
His oldest son, Martin Bormann Jr., was privileged and honoured to carry his father’s name. He remembers his father well. He was only 16 years old when, hiding at a farm after the Nazi collapse, he was listening on the radio to his father being sentenced to death in absentia for his war crimes.
“I was shocked and confused,” he said. The man described during the trial, the young Bormann said, “was not the father I knew. But it was there, every day, in all the newspapers, all the evidence of the concentration camps. Documents with his signature on them.”
The son says:
“We only saw him three or four times a year during the war, but he was a good father. He wanted to make his own family because he had nothing as a child. He was strict, but he had a very big heart.”
Bormann’s son remembers when, away at an elite Nazi Party academy, he received a postcard from his father.
It was addressed:
“To my dearest, darling child.” and asked, “I would like to come and see you next weekend, the 14th. Would you be able to see me then? With all my love, Father.”
It sounded as if it could have been a post card from just any good father to his son. But it wasn’t just from any good father. It was from one of the most notorious war criminals in all of history.
DEALING WITH A LEGACY
So, what do you do when your father is Martin Bormann Sr? How did Martin Bormann Jr. deal with it? How do you deal with such a legacy, such a past, one that you didn’t create but that, unquestionably, will impact your life until you die?
Well, the young Bormann converted to become a Roman Catholic in 1947, and then studied theology. He eventually became a Catholic priest in 1958 in the Missionary Order of the Heart of Jesus.
He worked for years as a missionary in one of the most challenging places on earth, the Belgian Congo. It was there he tried to help atone for his father’s deeds.
Over the years the young Bormann visited Israel and met with Jewish groups. He spoke with children of survivors. Martin Bormann Jr. even visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel. And he once addressed the March of the Living.
Now the March of the Living is an annual event that brings students from around the world to Auschwitz, in Poland. It’s another way to remember the Holocaust. In 2008, Martin Bormann Jr. took part in the march, and spoke to the crowd. One Israeli newspaper depicted it like this:
“The presence of an elderly German would hardly raise eyebrows among the thousands assembled for the March of the Living. So many Germans, Jews and Gentiles alike, had made the solitary pilgrimage to Auschwitz in Poland. And the old German, now in his seventh decade . . . had come to Auschwitz to atone for the sins of his country, for the sins of his father.”
“As Martin Bormann, Jr. took center stage to announce his presence, the crowd could scarcely believe what they were witnessing. But there he was, for all to see. He had the same foreboding curiosity that he had expected. He understood them. But the question remained: Would they understand him and his reason for being there?”
Yes, he was the son of Martin Bormann, trying to atone for the crimes that he himself had never committed and yet, no doubt, hung like a cloak around him.
HITLER’S CHILDREN
A documentary film came out in 2011 called Hitler’s Children. It told about how the children or the grandchildren and other relatives of men with the names of Himmler, Frank, Goering and Hoess tried to come to terms with the fact that they were, literally, the offspring of the last century’s greatest criminals and most hated individuals.
Hermann Goering was one of the top Nazis in Germany. He had even been Hitler’s designated successor. Goering was the highest-ranking Nazi to be tried at the Nuremberg Trials, where he was sentenced to death for his crimes against humanity.
The documentary caught up with Bettina Goering, the great-niece of Hermann Goering. She had moved away to New Mexico, USA, decades ago in order to try and get away from the past, and from her great-uncle’s legacy.
But even that wasn’t enough for Bettina. She and her brother were sterilized.
“We both did it,” she said, “so that there won’t be any more Goerings.”
In some ways, even worse than Hermann Goering was Rudolph Franz Ferdinand Hoess, the commandant of the infamous Auschwitz. Hoess is known to have ordered the use of Zyklon B gas to increase the number of people who could be executed at Auschwitz, with that number reaching as high as 2,000 killed each day.
During his trial, Hoess was accused of murdering three and a half million people. He denied the charge, saying:
“No. Only two and one half million—the rest died from disease and starvation.”
It’s unbelievable!
But what may really come as a surprise, is that Rudolph Hoess was a father to five children and lived on the outer grounds of Auschwitz with his family. The house looked like any other nice house with high walls around it to shield it from the camp. You would have had no idea what was going on just over the other side of the wall.
The family had a vegetable garden outside their home and their mother would always warn the children to rinse anything they took from the garden, especially when picking the strawberries. They were told to wash them well first before eating them. Why? Because of the ash; he human ash blown over the wall from the chimney stacks.
Now Rudolph Hoess’ grandson, Rainer Hoess says that,
“I grew up with the understanding that my family had lived through the terrors of the Nazi occupation in the Netherlands,” It was only when I was a teen, that I found out the details about my grandfather, Rudolph Hoess and his role in the war.”
Rainer was shocked and overcome with guilt for what had happened. He tried to take steps to get out of the shadow of his grandfather. Rainer left his home and his family and has since dedicated his adult life to talking about his family’s past and supporting holocaust survivors in an attempt to combat hate in all its forms.
He carries a real burden for the crimes that were committed by his grandfather. And his way to find atonement, his way to deal with it, is to visit around 80-100 schools every year and tell the students his family’s story, so the truth about the atrocities will never be forgotten.
But Rainer Hoess has gone even further than just speaking to students in other countries. He has also visited Auschwitz more than 30 times, taking groups back to see his grandfather’s former home there and the death camp he ran, with its gas chambers, ovens and chimney stacks.
He’s made personal contact with more than 70 holocaust survivors and created close relationships with many of them. And, in 2013, he wrote his family’s story in a book titled The Heritage of the Kommandant: On being part of a terrible family, to make sure future generations know about, and don’t forget, the horrors of the past.
“The point is to prevent something like that ever happening again,” he says. “We live in a really brutal and cruel world. It’s full of hate.”
Rainer Hoess wants to ensure that it never happens again. On one of his visits to Auschwitz, [he] was taking questions from a group of teenagers from Israel. One girl stood up, looked at him, and barely holding back the tears, uttered:
“Your grandfather actually murdered and tortured and exterminated my family!”
Her heartfelt words reinforced Rainer’s desire to atone for the wrongs that had been committed by his grandfather.
Later, an old man, a survivor of Auschwitz himself, came forward and wanted to shake his hand. Then they, an Auschwitz survivor and the grandson of Auschwitz’s commandant, embraced.
Rainer struggled with the legacy of his grandfather. He said:
“So you ask yourself, Why am I alive? To carry this guilt, this burden, to try to come to terms with it. That must be the only reason I exist, to do what he should have done.”
COLLECTIVE GUILT
To me, these stories of the children of the Nazis testify to something that, I believe, exists in all of us, regardless of who our parents are. Do you have a family legacy that you are not proud of, that you would like to make atonement for? Do you live with guilt?
Have you ever done things you are ashamed of? Maybe you still do? Maybe you struggle with a family legacy that seems as wired into you as the colour of your eyes. These children of the Nazis tried all sorts of ways to shake off the past, to atone for a legacy that gripped them and won’t let go. Are we not, at least to some degree, all like that?
These children of the Nazis felt a guilt for something they hadn’t done. Well, some of us have guilt for what we have done, and shame, too. You may know what guilt feels like. Guilt robs us of happiness. It causes depression. It can make you physically sick. It consumes us and sometimes can destroy us. So, what can we do about it? There must be an answer.
Just like you can’t atone for the sins of your family or your ancestors, neither can you atone for your own actions and mistakes either. And deep down in our hearts we sense that we can’t. We know that whatever we do to try and make up for the past, it just doesn’t work.
Now, atonement means to pay for the damage done and to satisfy justice. And that’s why Jesus came. That’s why he died on a cross for us. He fully and completely atoned for all that we have been trying to atone for ourselves, and just haven’t been able to.
GOOD NEWS
The good news is that you don’t need to keep struggling with the feeling of pain and guilt any longer. In an act of amazing love for us all, God substituted His Son Jesus to pay for all the sins, the evil, the hate and violence of everyone on this planet. His grace and goodness towards us was expensive for Him, but it was worth it.
Let’s read what it says in the Bible,
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:1).
Isn’t that a marvelous promise? It’s a life-changing promise. All we have to do is accept what Jesus has done for us and He will remove our guilt. Like the Nazi children, we don’t need to try to atone for what we really can’t atone for. We can’t atone for the mistakes we’ve made or for the evil in the world. But that’s why Jesus came. To forgive our sins and take away our guilt.
God has an answer to guilt. It’s called forgiveness. Here it is:
“If we tell Him our sins, He is faithful and we can depend on Him to forgive us of our sins. He will make our lives clean from all sin” (NLV).
Jesus came to free us from our guilt. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. In John 8:32, he says,
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (NIV).
Satan wants to keep you weighted down under the burden of guilt. He wants to keep you bound up so you can’t live in God’s freedom. But that’s not how God works. Here’s how God works: You ask for forgiveness. Then God forgives you.
But then, he goes a step further and actually forgets what you’ve done wrong. God won’t pull up your sins again, and he doesn’t want you to, either. He wants you to be free.
SPECIAL OFFER
If you’re carrying a burden of guilt and would like to know more about how to get rid of it forever, then I’d like to recommend the free gift we have for all our Incredible Journey viewers today.
It’s the booklet, Atonement. This easy-to-read booklet is our gift to you and is absolutely free. I guarantee there are no costs or obligations whatsoever. So make the most of this wonderful opportunity to receive your free gift today.
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Dear Heavenly Father, We all come with a legacy that we can’t shake, can’t atone for. But I thank you that Jesus took care of that for us. We thank you for forgiving us for all the mistakes we have made. Bless us now, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
