When it rears its ugly head Posted on January 23, 2026

Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum at the site of a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May. ~ image by Lorna Pauli from Pexels

In preparation for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, Glenn Wagner reflects on a powerful lesson about the evil of racism he learned from a Jewish rabbi and Holocaust survivor.

GLENN M. WAGNER
Michigan Conference Communications

“This is evil!”

It has been forty years, and those words, delivered with the power of a persuasive prophet, still reverberate in my conscience.

I had heard Rabbi Herman Schaalman speak before. As the senior rabbi of Chicago’s Emmanuel Congregation, Schaalman graciously welcomed annual visits from United Methodist confirmands I helped shepherd from Freeport, Illinois. As part of their faith formation, we were invited to participate in the Friday evening Shabbat service and were blessed to receive an introduction to Judaism and Jewish worship from the distinguished rabbi.

But this time, the scene was different. It was 1985, and I was working on my Doctor of Ministry at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, just nine miles north of Schaalman’s congregation. During my studies, I learned that the rabbi also served on the seminary’s faculty, so I had the chance to hear him again as he addressed the doctoral students.

On that occasion, Rabbi Schaalman shared his powerful testimony, which began with his early memories of growing up as a Jew in Nazi Germany. He was born in 1916 in Munich. Schaalman’s father was a German veteran of World War I who fought in the Battle of Verdun in France and later became a professor of mathematics and physics. His mother was from a rabbinic family.

Herman Schaalman was 17 when Adolf Hitler came to power. The rabbi shared his pain about being beaten up by his friends when he was just 7 years old because he was a Jew in what was then a mostly Roman Catholic city. He also talked about the horrific effects of persecution, displacement, and the Holocaust, which had a devastating impact on his Jewish friends, his neighbors, and members of his own family.

In total, more than 11 million people were murdered by Hitler’s regime — six million Jews and five million others, including Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, non-Jewish Poles, gay men, Romani people, Serbs, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. To help visualize this horror, imagine traveling anywhere within the 96,714 square miles of the state of Michigan and consider that the Nazis murdered 1 million more people than the state’s current population.

Schaalman concluded his sobering testimony by blaming human sin, namely racism. Racism is an all-too-frequent human practice of belittling, demeaning, and demonizing entire groups of people based on their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group. It sometimes leads to violence.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose legacy we celebrate this week, spoke about the triple evils of poverty, racism, and militarism, noting that they are interrelated and become barriers to what God has called us to be. Regarding the evil of racism, Dr. King noted, “Racism is a philosophy based on a contempt for life. It is the arrogant assertion that one race is the center of value and object of devotion, before which other races must kneel in submission.”

As a cheap political tactic, dictators the world over have used racism to belittle minority groups. This leadership finds it easier to govern the majority through racial fear and animus than to do the demanding work of leading a nation where diversity is celebrated as an asset and where all work together for the common good.

Schaalman concluded his remarks with a powerful declaration that has stayed with me: “Anytime, anywhere, and in any way, shape, or form that racism rears its ugly head in the world, I will jump on top of a table in the public square and, at the top of my lungs and with every ounce of my being, declare, ‘This is evil!’”

Rabbi Herman Schaalman spoke a truth that I also embrace.

An online search indicates that there may be over 10,000 memorials, museums, and plaques commemorating the Holocaust and its victims around the world. Remembering the rabbi’s declaration, I have been further influenced by visits to Yad Vashem (also known as The World Holocaust Remembrance Center) in Jerusalem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly set aside January 27 as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day for the world to remember the victims of the Holocaust. We need to remember that, in addition to the 11 million victims of the Holocaust, an additional 50 million civilians and military personnel died in World War II to defeat this racist scourge of Nazism.

Rabbi Schaalman, born in Munich, died in Chicago, Illinois, in 2017 at the age of 100.

A fitting way to honor the victims of the Holocaust and the millions more who gave their lives to end it is for any and all of us who are appalled by this terrible example of racism in our past to follow the late rabbi’s lead. In our public spaces, we must make a vocal declaration of our opposition to racism as evil, with all our passion — anytime, anywhere, and in any way, shape, or form that it rears its ugly head.

Our daily news indicates that racism remains a global problem, with evidence of this scourge close to home.

A positive way to oppose racism is to model Jesus’ sacrificial love for all humanity in our own lives. Jesus was clear with his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12, NRSVUE).

God, help us live in such a way that your sacrificial love for the world is reflected in how we love one another. May our faithful commitment to your love help prevent future holocausts fueled by racism. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Last Updated on January 22, 2026

Posted in Featured, NewsTagged Holocaust, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Martin Luther King, Rabbi Herman Schaalman, Racism