A crowd of men, women, and children huddled together at the train station…

Dressed for a long journey and standing with their bags at their sides, they spoke in low tones. Armed men in the grim uniform of the SS, the feared wing of the Nazi army, surrounded the travelers.

The people shivering on the platform were not criminals. They were Jews, French Jews who had been hauled from their homes by the occupying solders and French Nazi sympathizers.

The non-Jewish French watched these events unfold with increasing concern. After all, these people were neighbors and friends. The group included the watchmaker and his family, the lad who sold newspapers, the old lady who made beautiful quilts. Now they were being “relocated.”

The plumes of smoke could be seen even before the train was heard. The townspeople cast a nervous eye toward the train platform as the black, soot-belching locomotive ground to a halt.

Armed guards herded the Jews into the train cars. They went cooperatively, putting up no resistance. Concerned observers wondered why this was taking place; but they told themselves that things would be find, that there was no need to worry about these friends and neighbors. They were in good hands.

How could they believe that? Because neatly printed in French on the door of every box car was the reassuring logo, “Charitable Transport Company…” Wayne Rice

THOUGHT: We can also be deceived today. Though a political ideology can seem harmless — even good — it can represent a value system that undermines the sanctity of marriage, the family, morality, the church, respect for life, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Just another innocent looking boxcar…like those that took millions of Jews to the gas chambers.

“And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” 2 Corinthians 11.14

Mike Benson