The Curse Behind the Holocaust

The Curse Behind the Holocaust

The Spiritual Roots of Anti-Semitism

by Mary Nahas

Throughout the ages, the Jewish people have been through the most horrendous and ongoing persecution in history.  But, what’s it all about?  Why the Jews?  Did God care that millions suffered and died in the camps?  An Israeli rabbi said that when you count the miracles that occur in your life during tragedy, a message from God will emerge.  When my father counted the miracles of his life and realized his story contained the answers to those questions, he asked me to tell his story for the benefit of those who suffered in the camps.

Private John Galione just after the discovery of Camp Dora

Johnny grew up under the strong arm of an Italian immigrant who made him work so hard on the farm his fingers would bleed. One day it snowed, so he ran to the river to see if any of his childhood friends were ice-skating in their shoes.  But, it was so cold that day not a soul had come out to play. “I knew better than to step out onto the ice alone,” he said, “but the voice of temptation kept saying, ‘Go ahead. Skate all the way out to the middle. It will be fun!'”

Johnny stepped out onto the ice and skated to almost the middle of the river when a soft spot gave way and he fell through the ice. “I started to panic because I had held my breath for quite a while and I needed to breathe. I needed air,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to die and my family will never know what happened to me. My mother still cries for her children who died. If I die here under the ice, she won’t even know what happened to me. It will kill her . . . my poor mother.'”

What he said next is astounding: “That was the last thing I remember thinking under the water, when I found myself laying on the ground beside the water.  For the life of me, I don’t know how I got out of the water and onto the banks of the river! I looked to see if someone had left footprints so I could follow them and thank who rescued me, but there was only one set of footprints in the snow and they were mine.”

Johnny had no idea he was saved from the river for what he would accomplish twenty years later during World War II.

On April 4, 1945, Private John M. Galione of the 104th Infantry Division smelled an odor that plagued him with a gut feeling to search for prisoners: “Something kept telling me to follow the trains,” he said.  After several hours of following the trains, he was about to turn around and abort the mission when a strong force pushed him: “I turned around to see who pushed me, but nobody was there. It was like somebody had shoved me, grabbed me at the elbows, and pushed me forward.  I don’t even know where my energy was coming from. My legs were tired, but something was making me walk, telling me to keep following the trains; and somehow it gave me the strength to keep going.”

Following the trains for five days led Private Galione to the most secret and hidden camp in Germany.  From August of 1943 to April of 1945, slave laborers from Buchenwald and other camps were forced to manufacture the world’s first ballistic missiles in underground caves. Under the hands of brutal Nazis, the prisoners were hung, beaten, starved, and tortured until they dropped by their machines. Fresh victims from Buchenwald replaced the dead. Those who learned of their impending transfer to Dora simply killed themselves before having to board the transfer wagons.

When my father radioed liberating troops to Camp Dora on April 11, he recognized God’s effort to expose the remaining camps and to save the dying first.  The troops he called to Dora got lost and ended up at Nordhausen’s Boelcke Kaserne Death Camp, where the weakest from Camp Dora had been dumped and left to die. Then, Buchenwald was found because the prisoners of Dora were from Buchenwald. Moreover, before the discovery of Dora the military objective was to kill Germans and get to Hitler — not find camps. But when the Pentagon received word that slave laborers were making missiles in a concentration camp, the military objective changed to a diligent search for remaining camps and weapons.

As the American Army and its Allies saved the remnant of Jews from the camps, the United States received the technology that made her the most powerful nation in the world. Under the codename of Operation Paperclip, Pentagon officials ordered the confiscation of the missiles and the German scientists who had created them. They were transferred to America and became the nucleus of ABMA and NASA, where they developed the high-tech weapons and spaceships that gave us our satellites and took us to the moon.

Camp Dora was located in the Russian zone of occupation. In God’s wisdom, he sent Private Galione to beat the Russians to Camp Dora in order to prevent them from making an exclusive capture of German missile technology.  However, having the two nations “share” the technology caused world peace through the threat of mutual destruction. Through satellite technology one nation couldn’t move without the other seeing.  Through missile technology, one nation couldn’t strike without it resulting in their own national destruction.  Since the Russians are helping the terrorists today, one has to wonder whether Israel would have ever become a nation had the Russians discovered Camp Dora rather that the United States.

John and Viola Galione in 1945

Although my father’s war effort changed world history, he grieved for many years over those who suffered and died making the first rockets.  To add to their suffering, people said that God wanted Jews to suffer and die in the camps due to their rejection of Christ; others said He needed the ultimate sacrifice for sin. Over a lifetime of pondering the events, my father drew the conclusion that the Holocaust was born of evil:

“What I saw in Germany made a believer out of me that God has an adversary who hates the Jews. Even though there were many other people besides Jews who suffered in the war, the purpose of the war was all about eliminating the Jews. That’s how it all started. The hate the Nazis had for the Jews was not even a normal hate, like when you hate somebody. It was evil. They didn’t just want them dead; they wanted them to suffer in the most horrible ways. I could believe the Jews are God’s people after seeing how much hate there was for them, and the evil things done to them, and for no reason.”

In my quest to identify this “adversary” I searched the tanakh and a motive for premeditated murder emerged that reveals the mastermind behind anti-Semitism and the demise of countless Jews throughout the ages. While the Scriptures say Abraham was God’s friend and the Jews are the apple of His eye, it has gone unnoticed that Lucifer was the apple of God’s eye well before Abraham:

“Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering…. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so” (Ezekiel 28:12-15; Isaiah 41:8; Zec. 2:8).  Then, Lucifer betrayed God: “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:13-14).

Incredibly, the motive behind Lucifer’s hatred for Abraham and the Jews is found in the comparison of God’s reaction to their sin: The Scriptures say the Lucifer (light-bearer) was stripped of his rank and referred to as “Adversary,” he was cast away, his seed destroyed, cursed to humiliation, brought to ashes, tormented, never to be anymore, brought down to hell to the sides of the pit, and cast in the lake of fire (Ezek. 28:16-19, Rev. 12:10; Gen. 6; Isaiah 14:15; Rev. 20:10).

However, God called Abraham “my friend,” renamed him “father of a multitude” and said “I have chosen thee and not cast thee away . . . make thy seed as the sand of the sea . . . make thy name great . . . they shall be My people and I will be their God . . . prosper . . . be a blessing . . . bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey . . . all families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham’s seed, the Messiah!” (Isaiah 41:8; Gen. 32:12; Gen. 12: 2; Gen. 17:8; Exodus 3:8; Gen. 12:3; Gal. 3:8, 14-18).

In this light, one can see that the Adversary worked to place his curse onto the children of Israel. In the holocaust, Jews were “cast away, seed destroyed, brought to humiliation, brought to ashes, tormented, thrown in the fire, and never to be anymore.”  He is furious that he was doomed to burn in the lake of fire and given no hope of redemption; yet, Abraham and the Jewish people were given the opportunity to reunite with God through burnt sacrifice, then later through the Messiah: “And when the dragon [Satan] saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman [Israel] which brought forth the male child” (Yeshua the Messiah; Rev. 12:13-14).

John Galione and his daughter, Mary Nahas

Lucifer was livid that God not only gave the Jewish people a way of redemption, but He referred to the burnt sacrifices of the children of Israel as “a sweet smelling savor.” That’s when I realized that the crematoriums, with their stacks smoking day and night toward the nostrils of God, were born of the spiteful mind of His jealous enemy to mock the sweet smelling savor of the burnt sacrifice and pierce the heart of God with an agonizing reminder that he was not offered redemption like the children of Israel!

When I asked my father “Who pushed you by the trains and led you to the camp?” he replied: “When the Force pushed me to keep me from turning around, I had not yet actually turned around.  I was only thinking of turning around.  That’s when I realized it had to be God Himself who was behind it, because only God could have known what I was thinking; only God knows our thoughts.”

After the war, my father was blessed with seven children and grandchildren who were born every twenty years on the anniversary date of the liberation of the people he saved.  He believed that God spent a lifetime building a memorial through these births, because He wanted survivors and those who lost loved ones to know that He was behind their rescue and that He loved them and never wanted them to suffer and die in the camps.

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.