Conquering Hatred in a Concentration Camp

Max Liebster is a natural Jew who lived through the Holocaust. Although his surname means “beloved,” he has seen more than his share of hatred. He describes what he learned in Nazi Germany about love and hate.

“I was brought up near Mannheim, Germany, during the 1930’s. Hitler claimed that all the Jews were rich profiteers who were exploiting the German people. But the truth is that my father was just a humble shoemaker. Nevertheless, because of the influence of Nazi propaganda, neighbors began turning against us. When I was a teenager, a villager forcibly smeared pig’s blood on my forehead. This gross insult was only a taste of what was to come. In 1939 the Gestapo arrested me and confiscated all my belongings.

“From January 1940 until May 1945, I struggled to survive in five different concentration camps: Sachsenhausen, Neuengamme, Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald. My father, who was also sent to Sachsenhausen, died during the terrible winter of 1940. I personally carried his corpse to the crematorium, where a heap of dead bodies lay waiting to be burned. In all, eight of my family died in the camps.

“The kapos were hated among the prisoners even more than the SS guards. The kapos were prisoners who cooperated with the SS and so enjoyed certain favors. They were put in charge of food distribution, and they also administered lashings to other prisoners. Often they acted unfairly and arbitrarily. I suppose I had more than enough reason to hate both the SS and the kapos, but during my imprisonment, I learned that love is more powerful than hatred.

“The fortitude of prisoners who were Jehovah’s Witnesses convinced me that their faith was based on the Scriptures​—and I became a Witness myself. Ernst Wauer, a Witness I met in the Neuengamme concentration camp, urged me to cultivate the mental attitude of Christ. The Bible says that ‘when he was being reviled, he did not go reviling in return. When he was suffering, he did not go threatening, but kept on committing himself to the one who judges righteously.’ (1 Peter 2:23) I tried to do the same, to leave vengeance in the hands of God, who is the Judge of all.

“My years in the camps taught me that people often do evil things out of ignorance. Not even all the SS guards were bad​—there was one who saved my life. I once suffered an acute attack of diarrhea and was too weak to walk from my work to the camp. I should have been sent to the gas ovens of Auschwitz the following morning, but an SS guard, who came from the same region of Germany as I did, intervened in my behalf. He got me work in the SS cafeteria, where I was able to get some rest until I recovered. One day he confessed to me: ‘Max, I feel I am on a train that is traveling at high speed and out of control. If I jump off, I will be killed. If I stay on, I will crash!’

“These people needed love as much as I did. In fact, it was love and compassion, along with my faith in God, that enabled me to cope with the wretched conditions and the daily threat of execution. I can’t say that I survived unscathed, but my emotional scars were minimal.”

The warmth and kindness that Max still radiates 50 years later is eloquent testimony to the truth of his words.

[Pictures on page 7]

Nazis tattooed a prison number on Max Liebster’s left arm