Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in the home of Jack Zaifman. Jack has one of the most remarkable stories  a person can hear--he is a survivor of the Holocaust.  

From the age of 15, for the following 5 years Jack was a prisoner in Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz and Dachau.  Time after time he witnessed the atrocity of people being murdered around him.  Multiple times he came to the point of  of his own death, through sickness or the violence of others. 

I listened as Jack told of the first day of the war on his village as his cousin was killed right next to him as they ran.  Stories of long lines of people shot at random.  Of a ruse where people were going to be sent to Palestine, only to be sent a couple of miles to be killed. Jack recounted his personal memories of "the angel of death," Joseph Mengela.  Also the torturing games held for entertainment for the architect of Jewish extermination camps, Heinrich Himmler.  

Many Holocaust survivors lost any belief in God, they renounced a God who would allow such horrific evil to occur.  Not Jack!  For him it was God and his trust in God which got him through each day.  God not only brought him through, "for a purpose," but God also took from Jack all bitterness.  I asked him about this--he said he has "forgiven all." Amazing, for a man who has every reason to hold onto bitterness, racism, resentment.

God teaches us that "if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

--Matthew 6:14-15