Jump directly to the Content
Jump directly to the Content

Sermon Illustrations

Home > Sermon Illustrations

As Survivors Die, Will Memory of the Holocaust Fade?

Every year the memory of the Holocaust fades as the group of living witnesses and firsthand survivors shrinks. A BBC article highlights how Jewish people are actively working to preserve the memories of the genocide. Yishai Szekely, a young doctor who serves in the Israeli military army reserve, explains one way they are trying to keep the stories alive: "Six million is such a huge number, even to think of 1,000 it confuses you. The power is in the name because we don't have much left. That's the only thing we can touch or understand or imagine, our only connection that we could start to make to our past … When you connect to one name, one person to one name, it makes it easier for you to understand."

Possible Preaching Angle:

How can we understand huge issues, like global evangelism, or justice for the oppressed, or help for victims of sex trafficking? Maybe, like Dr. Szekely says, we can connect the huge issues of our day with at least one name, one face, one story.

Related Sermon Illustrations

Syndrome K: The Fake Disease That Saved Lives

In the fall of 1943 German soldiers began rounding up Jews in Italy and deporting them by the thousands to concentration camps. Simultaneously a mysterious and deadly disease called ...

[Read More]

Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' Hits the Shelves 70 Years Later

The Times of Israel reports, "For 70 years since the Nazi defeat in World War II, copyright law has been used in Germany to prohibit the publication of Mein Kampf—the notorious ...

[Read More]