Christian Leaders Repent for Holocaust
ICEJ hosts repentance ceremonies at Yad Vashem
CBN News, Jerusalem, 20 January 2012
JERUSALEM, Israel — A delegation of high-ranking German and Austrian Christian leaders are in Jerusalem this week for events marking the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi leaders decided on the “Final Solution” for the extermination of European Jewry.
JERUSALEM, Israel — A delegation of high-ranking German and Austrian Christian leaders are in Jerusalem this week for events marking the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi leaders decided on the “Final Solution” for the extermination of European Jewry.
“They made a public declaration that they want to stand up in their churches with their German communities to make a difference in the future, and make sure that future generations will do everything to prevent another Holocaust to take place,” ICEJ Executive Director Juergen Buehler told CBN News.
“So we as Christians have a historic responsibility, and we need to own up to it and we need to say that we don’t want to repeat [the Holocaust] ever again,” added Susanna Kokkonen, director of Christian Friends of Yad Vashem.
The two-day gathering in Jerusalem culminated on Friday with a wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem’s Warsaw Ghetto Square and observances in the Hall of Remembrance to honor the Jewish victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Delegates from 32 major Christian denominations and ministries in Germany and Austria, representing millions of followers, laid wreaths at today’s event.
“The Christian nation of Germany some two generations ago gives us an example of the evil which can flow when a people turn their back on a God of goodness Who loves all humankind,” said Rev. Ingolf Ellßel, Chairman of the Pentecostal European Fellowship. “To remember this causes a deep shaking in our hearts.”
“Wannsee was one of the darkest days in the history of the German people,” added Gottfried Bühler, National Director of ICEJ-Germany and the initiator of the event. “Seventy years after, we bow down in deep sorrow. And we also promise to keep this remembrance alive. That is why many of us brought our children along, so the next generation can witness these ceremonies. Yet remembrance alone is not enough; it must go hand-in-hand with responsible deeds of goodness.”
The ICEJ then handed over a $60,000 check to Yad Vashem for its Holocaust studies and education center, to sponsor special seminars for Christian leaders to train them in teaching the universal lessons of the Holocaust.
During their two days in Jerusalem to mark 70 years since Wannsee, the delegation of German and Austrian Christians also paid a visit to the Knesset, meet with Israel’s Chief Rabbi (Ashkenazi) Yona Metzger, hold special prayer services at the Western Wall and the King of Kings Prayer Tower, and attended a memorial concert organized by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem in partnership with the Helping Hand Coalition at Mishkenot Sha´ananim featuring performances by the noted German Christian Music Academy of Stuttgart. The series of events ended on Friday evening with a reception at the global headquarters of the Christian Embassy in Jerusalem.
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