I was born, the son of Jewish parents, in the city of Frankfurt on Main, in southwest Germany. My father, a successful insurance representative, was a loyal subject of the ruling house of the Hohenzollern and felt that he was a good German. My mother was an accomplished pianist. I was brought up in an atmosphere of culture, which actually took the place of religion. Our religious training was confined to two hours a week when a fine rabbinical teacher came to the school to give us basic training in the Judaism. We were taught selected stories of the Old Testament, called Tanach, and some Scripture portions.
Every year on Good Friday I went to the concert hall to listen to one of the master works of music, “The Passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, according to St. Matthew,” by Bach. The best of musicians took part. Many Jewish choir members sang in this oratorio, seemingly unconcerned as to the meaning of the tremendous portions in Matthew 26 and 27.
When I was about 14, having arrived home from this oratorio, I began to think about Jesus. I read Matthew 26 and 27. Gradually the Person of Jesus of Nazareth came into focus. “This, indeed, was a great man, this man Jesus,” I argued in myself; “a great example, a great teacher, a great prophet. Too bad that He had to die the death of a martyr; this could have been avoided.” That He, the Son of God, had come down from heaven to take my place in the divine judgment of my sin, this, of course, did not enter my mind.
But where was I to turn? Was there any answer at all? Was there any meaning in life? Was there a God? I would have to go through many more testings and trials before, in deepest night and desperation, the answer to all these questions would come from above.
Hitler raised his ugly head in 1923. By 1928, the National Socialist Party returned as the strongest party of the House. Eventually the old president, Marshall von Hindenburg, entrusted Hitler with the government of Germany. This happened on January 30, 1933.
Hitler proceeded with the segregation of the Jewish citizens of Germany, called also the “cold persecution.” The so-called “citizenship law” of the German nation decreed that only those were considered German citizens who had no “Jewish blood” in their veins.
The next step was “Name Legislation.” The Jewish men had to add the name “Israel,” and the Jewish women the name “Sarah.” If Hitler had known their meanings, he would have chosen other names of shame. “Israel” means prince with God, and “Sarah,” princess.
The “cold persecution” of the Jews came to an end in November, 1938. In revenge for the shooting in Paris of Legation Secretary Walter Vom Rath by a young Jew named Greenspan, all the synagogues were set on fire. No fire department was permitted to interfere. Furthermore every Jewish man was to be rounded up and taken to concentration camps.
On November 10, I saw the Westend Synagogue in Frankfurt, a beautiful building, go up in flames. Still not aware of what was in store, I went to my office. The foreman saw me come in, and shouted, “Mr. Wiener, you are mad? Don’t you know that the Gestapo will be here shortly to take you away?”
Going back through the city, I saw the smashing of the windows of the Jewish stores and the looting. Arriving at home, I was told that my cousin and my second youngest brother had already been picked up from the street when they went out in the morning.
At noon on November 12, the bell rang. There stood two storm troopers and a policeman. They left me about 15 minutes to collect my most necessary belongings. I went quickly into the attic room where I had spent so many times of study and searching for truth. I had a little candle which I always lit before I said my prayers. I kindled it quickly, knelt down, and committed myself into the hand of God. At that crucial moment, I was convinced in my soul that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, and that He had come to bring redemption and new life to His ancient people, but I had not yet surrendered to Him. Yet, in that moment of fatal danger, I did not know where to go except to Him!
We were taken to the great concert hall of Frankfurt, the same hall where in former days I had listened to “Matthew’s Passion” and the “Messiah” by Handel. But that day, November 12, 1938, there was no music. Black uniformed Hitler guards brought in Jewish men from all the surrounding districts. On November 12, they arrested about 2,000 Jewish men.
At midnight, after they took away our meager belongings, we were taken to the railway station. The populace at the station received us with what sounded like animal noises. Quite a few shouted: “Concentration camp for you dirty Jews!” The guards chased us into the train, and we were on our way.
The morning of November 13 dawned. The train stopped at Weimar, the famous city of high culture, for many years the residence of the world famous poet, playwright and philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Trucks were ready at the station to ship us to the camp about 20 miles north of Weimar. Anyone not able to climb up fast enough was pitilessly beaten. Many broke their arms and legs. It was Sunday morning. Up we went, in beautiful sunshine, autumn leaves in full color–to the gate of hell.
Buchenwald, as all Hitler camps, was surrounded by barbed wire charged with high voltage. Anyone who touched it was electrocuted immediately. Watchtowers at regular intervals were manned by the guards. They were, as Hitler termed it, “trained for the special duties of the concentration camps.” We learned very soon what this meant.
At the time I was captured, I was suffering with an open cyst on the upper right jaw. My nerves were at the brink of exhaustion. A deep depression had taken hold of me, which, if aggravated much more, could easily have deteriorated into a mental disturbance which would have had fatal consequences.
Then came another announcement: “No water, nothing to drink for newcomers for three days!” Three days without anything to drink brings a person to utter exhaustion. At night they gave us the first “meal”: a salty soup. More thirst.
It was about ten o’clock when they ordered us into the barrack. Inside were just boards, five stories high. Of course, there was no stairway. Anyone who had to climb higher than the boards next to the floor had to climb up in a very cumbersome way. There were scarcely any water pipes laid, and no latrines. It would lead too far to go into all the details. It was like descending into the abyss. What hope could we possibly have?
During that first night of terror we finally fell exhausted on the planks, dying of thirst, without blankets in the cold air of November; we hoped that now we would be able to sleep. It was dark, terribly dark.
I had searched for truth. Through many avenues of error, I had come to recognize the main issue of our existence as Jews–that the Jews were taken out from among the nations in order to bring the Saviour into this world. Through the prophets, warning after warning was given to God’s earthly people not to miss this turning point of the ages. But, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not”!
Oh, tragedy of our beloved Jewish people! God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, cannot let them go. He told them that unto them “a child [would be] born,” unto them “a Son [would be] given,” and that His name would be called “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6); that He, the Messiah, would be their sinbearer, that by “His stripes” they would be “healed” (Isa. 53:5). They were told of this wonderful plan of redemption over and over again; but they did not open the door when the great hour of His appearing arrived.
I came to Jesus by night, like Nicodemus. I found, by comparing Old and New Testaments, that all the prophecies concerning the Messiah fitted perfectly on Jesus of Nazareth. I found something else. Our rabbis told us that man can come into the presence of God by keeping the law and doing “mizvahs” (good deeds) to fellowmen. But God says throughout the Old Testament: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:11).
The question came to me, “Who is right, God or the rabbis?” When I came to Buchenwald, there was no doubt in my mind that God was right. He says in Malachi 3:6: “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” If He does not change, then His plan of salvation has not changed. Then His means of salvation cannot change, either! I asked: “Where is the blood today? Where is the sacrifice? Where is the altar? It must be somewhere.”
During that first night in Buchenwald, the most awful things happened. Minutes after the lights had been switched out, the doors were opened and the guards came in like hyenas, taking out at random Jewish men–honorable men! They ordered them out into the yard and then the “manhunt” began. We heard, first muffled, then louder, the orders: “Run, you Jews! Dirty Jews, run! Run faster!” The guards had dogs with them, snarling German shepherds. If these unhappy Jewish men could not run fast enough, they were caught by the dogs and torn to pieces, or stabbed by the guards who had butcher knives in their hands. Those who were able to run fast enough were chased across the yard of the camp right into the electric wire where they died instantly.
The screaming of those who met their end in this way was so frightening that, during this first night, I came very near to losing my mind. Many went mad.
Here I was, naked before God. There was no escape any more. I knew that I was coming fast to the brink of death. What if I should pass into eternity and should hear the terrible words: “Too late!”? Too late to come the right way! Now I was near the breaking point–no hope any more, no way out, hopelessly fenced in, drawn toward the abyss of an eternity of horror by powerful invisible hands.
But that invisible, hellish taskmaster, Roedl, the commander of Buchenwald, left us no time for even thinking. “Juden auf den Hof!” We dragged ourselves outside. We had to stand, stand, stand. An icy wind made my exhausted frame shiver feverishly. I felt that the end had come. Not only the end of my physical existence, but something much worse, an end–not life, but not death either–in which the soul becomes irreparable, hopelessly damaged, eternally fixed–no sleep at all, but stagnant, staring, timeless wakefulness under unspeakable tortures.
The next day, we were insulted by the commander through the loudspeaker with all the insults which have been hurled against the Jews for centuries. “You Jewish swine, you have stolen all the money. You tried to bring the German people under your dirty rule. You have tried to seize control of all German life. But the Fuehrer is our deliverer from you pests! We will exterminate you like vermin. This is our task. Invincible will be our crusade against you Unterasse (Inferior Race). There will be a holy war against you for the purpose of delivering the world from you!”
Perhaps there are some incredulous readers who might think that we have dreamt up these stories of terror. I can assure you that there is nothing whatsoever exaggerated. Words cannot possibly describe the inferno of a Hitler camp.
But now listen to what happened to me in that most crucial, most helpless moment in Buchenwald, November 14 and 15, 1938.
Again the guards came in. Again they forced Jewish men out into the yard. Suddenly, a horrible sight unfolded before my eyes. I saw my mother dying in the concentration camp. I heard voices accusing me that I had murdered my mother because I was thinking only of myself and had not acted in time to rescue her. The horrors to which I had been exposed were nothing compared to this! It cut to my heart. The accusing voices grew stronger. “You know,” someone said, “he refused to register her in time at the American Consulate. He saved his own skin, but did not care for his mother. He has deserved death!”
In reality, my mother was still living in Frankfurt. It was four years later that she and my sisters were deported to Terezin where she died in 1944.
And then, while I was sinking still deeper into what natural reason would have called a delirious condition, or a delusion, but which was exceedingly real to me, the picture changed again. I stood, as it were, at the ramp of the orchestra pit of our opera house in Frankfurt, and I saw how, from all sides, books, books, my books, which I cherished so much, and my manuscripts, were thrown by invisible hands into this orchestra pit. A fire was kindled, and my books and papers were burnt. Nothing remained. I was robbed of all my proud achievements.
Then all these pictures vanished. A terrific abyss opened up. I saw hands reaching out after me, ready to pull me down into an eternity of horror and perdition. I wanted to cry out, but I could not. I was paralyzed. Although I was, as far as this life is concerned, surrounded by the shrieking of those outside our barrack being chased to their death, I did not hear anything anymore from the sounds without. No noises seemed to penetrate this horrid torment.
Then came a hand from above, one hand from above against many hands from beneath! And in that one hand was the print of a nail.
At this moment, a voice was given to me to cry, and I cried to Him in the midst of this horrible camp: “Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour, my Redeemer, I die. But Thou, Thou alone art able to help me! Thou alone art able to rescue me from the wrath of God! I am a sinner, a horrible, helpless sinner. But Thou camest down from heaven to rescue me, Thy lost child! Help me, Lord Jesus! I surrender all to Thee.” And crying to Him who alone is able to save to the uttermost, I lost consciousness.
Though I know that the Holy Spirit has to reprove the resistant derelict of sin and righteousness and judgment, I am thoroughly convinced, after this experience, that free will was never taken away from man. It was my privilege to have a real hour of decision and to receive the divine confirmation of the words of the Lord spoken to His people in Deuteronomy 30:15, “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil”;–mighty words corroborated by God Himself through Jeremiah (21:8).
When I lost consciousness, I was, humanly speaking, doomed to death. Anyone who did, or who went out of his mind, was thrown into the laundry kitchen by the guards and left there to die. How easily I could have been among them!
But I awoke in the camp “hospital,” a barrack with about sixty beds. It had to be sufficient for ten thousand men. To get there was next to impossible. To survive there was a greater miracle.
I stayed a few more days in the camp hospital. Then I was released back to the barrack. This was another miracle, but I did not at the time understand just from what I had been delivered. Much later, I read in Dr. Eugen Kogon’s hair-raising documentary report, The Theory and Practise of Hell, that I had been miraculously delivered from a place from which scarcely anyone ever emerged alive.
Then I heard how I was rescued. The supervisor of our block, a Jewish gentleman from Breslau, had watched over me, and had finally got me to the hospital. This man told me he protected me because I was “in a delirious condition,” as he termed it, always crying, “Christ! Christ!” He could not understand how I, a Jew, could ring out this name. He attributed it to my allegedly “delirious” condition.
But there was a deeper reason. Seventeen years later at a conference near Wallaceburg, Ontario, a missionary from India approached me after I had told the story of my conversion. She said: “Mr. Wiener, while you were in these camps in the beginning of the persecution of the Jews under Hitler, we prayed in India that the Lord would stall the flood of evil against the Jews, and that some might see the Light. My prayer is answered.”
Two weeks after we had been taken to Buchenwald, in the wake of this first wave of persecution, the releases from the camp started. At that time, about three years before the so-called final solution (complete extermination of the Jews) the Nazis still permitted emigration from Germany under two conditions: that a man was a veteran of the First World War, and/or a document of emigration was provided for the prisoner by relatives or friends in another country. Both these conditions were met in my case. I had been in France with the German army in 1918, and an old friend of my parents, a prominent Jewish man in New York, provided an affidavit for me to emigrate to the United States as soon as my quota number, which was very high, would be called up.
From December 1 on, every day names were called through the loudspeaker–men who were ready for release. Everybody in the camp listened strenuously to these names. On December 13, 1938, I heard my name called. This was the third miracle.
We had to sign a document that we had not suffered any bodily harm in the concentration camp, a farce because many who were released had suffered irreparable physical and mental damage.
Finally, we stood at the gate, about sixty Jewish men. Grim had been my reception to Buchenwald, but of incomprehensible blessedness was what I was privileged to experience by the grace of God there. “For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel” (Isa. 41:13-14)! If we clasp our right hand–empty of anything we can do–into His nail-pierced Right Hand which reaches out from heaven to rescue us, we are washed in the precious blood of His etemal atonement.
But there is more. Having been thus born again, we are members of a new people called the ekklesia, the “called-out-ones,” the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.