Deadliest maritime disaster in recorded history. Any guesses? The first to come to most minds would probably be the Titanic. My second guess would be the Lusitania, an ocean liner sunk during WWI. Neither maritime disasters were the deadliest in recorded history. When a German u-boat torpedoed the Lusitania, 1,198 passengers perished. After the “unsinkable” Titanic struck an iceberg, approximately 1,500 passengers died. The well-known and often spoken of Titanic disaster is dwarfed by an unheard of tragedy during WWII–the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustlov.
Published in February of 2016, the novel Salt to the Sea is dedicated to telling the story of the Wilhelm Gustlov, a German ocean liner that took approximately 9,000 lives with it when it was sunk during WWII.
Do you know who said this? Keep reading and I’ll tell you.
A few days ago I made a post titled Support the Romeikes. The Romeike’s are a German family who came to the states to escape persecution in their homeland. Several of you clicked through to the petition started on their behalf. Thank you. Today HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association) published a video about the Romeikes. I’m embedding it here if you want to watch it.
As soon as Mr. Romeike said, “The government wants the right to impose what they think children should learn.” I knew I’d heard that sentiment before. You read it in the quote posted above. Those words were spoken by a government leader in Germany. Have you guessed who? It was Adolf Hitler.
That’s right. A lot of people don’t know that governmental control of the German youth was a huge part of Hitler’s devastating plan for the Third Reich. And now the German people are fighting this war again. What’s even scarier is that we here in the United States need to fight it too because our government wants the same power. And Hitler was right, whoever controls the education of the children controls the future of the country.
To quote Hitler again:
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.
We need to think. English statesman Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” He also stated that, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” He was right. On both counts.
Whether or not you support homeschooling, it’s important to recognize that absolute control over education should not be handed over to any government. It led to disaster in Germany and it can easily do the same again. Except this time it could be the downfall of our “bastion of freedom,” the US. Let’s not make the same mistake made by so many people before and during WWII. The mistake of silence. To close, consider this quote from another English statesman, William Wilberforce.
You may chose to look the other way but you can never again say that you did not know.
Rudi Kaplan is a young Christian Jew living in Warsaw. When the Nazi army invades his city, life grows increasingly difficult. When things are tough, though, Rudi knows he can depend on his father. That is, until his father tells him he must leave.
“I can’t–I just can’t go alone.”
But he must.
“The forest is God’s secret place for you, Rudi. There–there you shall be under His shadow, where you will be safe. Please, son, please don’t let me down.”
A place of safety. As Rudi obeys his father, he is painfully aware that his father has not made the same promise concerning himself. As he struggles to survive the war, Rudi must learn to trust his heavenly father as well as his earthly one.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Leah E. Good 