It's one thing to read about the holocaust in a book. Quite another to read it in the face of a survivor. 

At the Illinois Holocaust Museum, (ilholocaustmuseum.org), I sat across from Fritzie Fritzshall who lived in the former Czechoslovakia.  After the Nazis occupied her town, Fritzie and her mother and two brothers were forced into a ghetto, and ultimately deported to Auschwitz.  She was just 13.  

Jammed into a railroad car, there was standing room only.  One tiny window offered far too little ventilation for the more than 100 people crammed inside.  With agonizing detail, Fritzie described the thirst, the hunger, the heat and the smells.

“It was there we surrendered the first of our dignity,” she almost whispered.  Fritzie recalled the one bucket in the center of the train car that served as the only toilet.  “An old woman sat down and several tried to give her some privacy, holding up a blanket.”  But before long, dehydration and hunger sapped them of their modesty.  The bucket was constantly full, constantly sloshing the excess of its filth on those who sought relief.

Over the course of the long train ride Fritzie remembers, “I saw mothers with tiny babies, unable to feed them or give them something to drink.  They died in their mothers’ arms.” Before the train ride ended, Fritzie's own grandfather was dead.  Indeed, half the train car's passengers were dead.  

And that's when the doors slid open.

At Auschwitz. 

There is so much more to Fritzie’s story.  But what must be said is that Fritzie Fritzshall is not just a survivor.  She's a hero.  

Fritzie does not ask for your sympathy.

Yet she demands that you remember:  The Holocaust did happen.

Given the global rise of anti-Semitism, I think it less than alarmist to suggest the Holocaust could happen again—this time with an even broader range of targets. 

Psalm 94:16, “Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will stand for me against those who practice iniquity?”