The Auschwitz Syndrome

Refusing To Believe Warnings From Others About Impending Doom

Jews Getting On A Train To A Nazi Death Camp Unaware Of Their Coming Doom

Note The Jewish “Star Of David” Emblem On Their Coats

 
Why do people continue to believe they are safe even when they are in very serious danger? I’m not talking about being ignorant of a bomb that is about to go off that few people might know about. I’m talking about living in a world where people who want to know the truth can know it with a good degree of certainty – they can see whether or not their government and the “powers that be” are their friends or their worst enemies – enemies that just haven’t yet exercised their full power to harm. So many people in our society appear to be strongly convinced that they already have the truth (and that they have done enough work to find that truth, ignoring the fact that finding truth can at times require a lot more effort than they are willing to expend). For these wishful thinkers, any seriously different or alternative views about their safety must be “off the deep end” and nothing more than “wild conspiracy stories”. Subscribing to that point of view simplifies life for them and they can relax in their ignorance and deception, which is what they really want to do, play the ostrich (i.e. stick their heads in the sand)… because it takes very little effort and gives them comfort for the present moment – which seems to be the only point in time that these folks really care about. By convincing themselves that they already have the truth, they can move on in life and treat “messages to the contrary” like nothing more than annoying speed bumps in the road of life. They were persuaded long ago that the popular press or “majority opinion” is trustworthy, perhaps for no other reason than so many other people around them are equally brainwashed by those same propaganda machines. And their camaraderie among the willfully ignorant further adds to their peace of mind about the lies they have embraced as truth.
 
I see this phenomenon as mainly being willfully ignorant, because these people are preoccupied with things they think are more worthy of their time and energy, almost like rats in a maze looking for cheese (their immediate goal), not looking for a way out of the maze (a possible future goal if immediate circumstances make that goal extremely attractive, more attractive than the cheese, like if a predator was in the maze with them and chasing them *right now*). If there are no perceived immediate dangers to themselves personally, these people just do what they usually do: look for the things that tickle their fancy and capture their interest and satisfy their immediate desires. For these people, the future will only concern them – not when they are standing in the gas chamber and not when the poison gas gets turned on – but only after they start choking on the poison gas. Only then will these people realize and believe that they were deceived. But of course it will be way too late for them to do anything about the truth that they ignored for so long, not that they really ignored it. Rather, they chose not to believe it.
 
And that is the one fatal mistake that people have made throughout history. First and foremost, they thought that their assessments were accurate enough, at least for the time being. But this is a terribly lethal assumption we make when we assume that our assessment of the people in power over us is accurate. Taking comfort in a FALSE IDEA, the idea that people in power are no worse than the man on the street, is the same fatal mistake millions have made. They assumed people in power could not be as evil as they actually are. They never bothered to study history or the personalities of tyrants, else they would have realized that those monsters tend to be the kind of people that end up at the highest levels of government, media, industry and religious institutions, because they have no conscience and because they are experts at deception and manipulation. To them, human beings are as disposable as used toilet paper is to the ordinary person. As long as they can get away with it, and if necessary, they kill whom they want when they want, either to get what they want or because they enjoy killing and torturing others. If you can’t wrap your head around that kind of evil, well then you are very likely to be a victim of it. Because as a society becomes more and more ignorant of the evil traits and evil deeds of these kinds of despots and dictators of the past, they are less likely to recognize new ones cropping up in their midst. And of special note: the masses are more likely to believe the lies of the media that these criminals gain control of. And these devils know from their own careful study of evil rulers like themselves, that the bigger the lie and the more often it is repeated, the more likely the masses are to believe it. And the masses will tend to reinforce the lies among themselves, belittling any “odd ball” who tries to warn them of any danger that does not fit into the popular propaganda narrative. If their evil leaders create new “enemies” the masses will believe them even if the new “enemies” are innocent scapegoats or even the “good guys”.
 
I think a good name for this phenomenon of being unable to think about a different, unpleasant reality that you probably never experienced personally in your life, would be to call it The Auschwitz Syndrome. Please bear in mind, that I am not talking about the poor souls that felt powerless to run from the Nazis who were forcefully taking them to their deaths at the Auschwitz prison camp or other Nazi prison camps. But some of what I have said here would certainly apply to those among them who could not comprehend the degree of wickedness and cruelty of those whose hands they were in until, in the end, they experienced the full force of it.
 
The same syndrome applies in the spiritual realm also. When presented with the reality of death, with the reality of one’s own mortality, and the need to investigate what happens after death just in case there really is a place of eternal punishment called Hell, you will find that most people want to play the ostrich (i.e. willfully choose to not look into the matter). They don’t want to be bothered with something as serious as where they will spend eternity. That can wait. Sudden death is not that common, so why should they bother investigating it. Right now they need to decide what to have for dinner, where to go on vacation, what kind of car to buy next, what photo of themselves to post of Facebook and so on. And yet, people around them will get terminally ill and die, or die suddenly in car accidents or other types of catastrophic events. These observers of death will go to the funerals of those deceased persons, and STILL they will continue down the path they are on, simply hoping for the best, assuming that nothing really bad could possibly happen TO THEM. So, like so many other unconcerned souls they see all around them, they just casually ignore the issue of what happens when they leave this world forever. But since God does not accept ignorance as an excuse for not seeking Him while we are here in this world, we are surely in dire trouble when we leave this world unprepared for eternity. God has sent the prophets, the apostles and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ to make it very clear to us the way to heaven. In the Bible it is easy to see just how holy God is and how unfit we are for eternal fellowship with Him. But we still want to believe something different. We still want to believe that God will compare us with others who are worse than ourselves. We still want to believe that either Hell does not exist or it is a place that we would never qualify for when nothing could be further from the truth. EVERYONE qualifies for Hell. NO ONE qualifies for Heaven until and unless the Savior makes them qualified. And such is the reality that we cannot or do not wish to accept. That is our spiritual Auschwitz Syndrome. — RM Kane
 

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” – Hebrews 10:16-17

 
NOTE: This article is dedicated to my father’s uncle Wally, who came to America after World War 2 with a serial number tattooed on his forearm, courtesy of the Nazis who not only put Jews in their slave labor camps but Polish Catholics like Wally also. Wally had been a soldier in the Polish Resistance Army – fighting against the Nazis – prior to being sent to a Nazi prison camp.