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Tony Campolo tells a true story of a Jewish boy who suffered under
the Nazis in World War II. He was living in a small Polish village when he
and all the other Jews of the vicinity were rounded up by Nazi SS troops and sentenced to death. This boy joined his neighbors in digging a shallow
ditch for their graves, then faced the firing squad with his parents.
Sprayed with machine-gun fire, bodies fell into the ditch and the Nazis
covered the crumpled bodies with dirt. But none of the bullets hit the
little boy. He was splattered with the blood of his parents and when they
fell into the ditch, he pretended to be dead and fell on top of them. The
grave was so shallow that the thin covering of dirt did not prevent air from
getting through to him so that he could breathe. Several hours later, when
darkness fell, he clawed his way out of the grave.
With blood and dirt caked to his little body, he made his way to the nearest house and begged for help. Recognizing him as one of the Jewish boys marked for death, he was turned away at house after house as people feared getting into trouble with the SS troops. Then something inside seemed to guide him to say something that was very strange for a Jewish boy to say. When the next family responded to his timid knocking in the still of the night, they heard him cry, "Don't you recognize me? I am the Jesus you say you love."
After a poignant pause, the woman who stood in the doorway swept him into her arms and kissed him. From that day on, the members of that family cared for that boy as though he was one of their own.
Tony Campolo
(Inspirational submitted by: Rebecca Parmley)