I’m sure the average Christian’s first response to our hypothetical question would be no. I base this on my own reaction to such a question. Then I began thinking about an experience my husband Kirk and I had while living in Germany.
The little village we lived in was your quintessential Bavarian town with winding roads and the vast green fields that dots much of Germany’s landscape. In our village of Wahnwegen, many of the two story homes nestled next to each other were riddled with holes left by the bullets fired from machine guns.
Our home was just such a home. Built around 1840 it had stood the test of time and in the 1980’s it still carried the scars of Hitler’s insanity. Our home was owned by a man named Günther. His mom (Oma) lived upstairs and they rented out the ground floor to members of the military. Günter’s father was gunned down by the Nazis in front of our home and the bullet holes from where he was assassinated were still very visible more than forty years later.
Some five kilometers away stood the neighboring village of Könken bearing the same pock marked scars of bullet holes. In this village the same families still lived in the homes they did during WW2, but the visible scars on their homes could never equal to the pain of the invisible scars their homes held.
Villagers were still divided more than forty years later by events that took place in the early 1940’s. Before WW2 roughly 50% of Könken’s population was Jewish, and with events taking place during the Nazi era, a few of Könken’s families decided to hide neighbors in their basements.
One of Könken’s residents was also home to a family on the outskirts of town who had been there for numerous generations and they owned the town ‘Gasthaüs’; roughly translated it was the town drinking hall and restaurant. The family had a young son who was the perfect age (21) to fight Hitler’s battles. This family decided in order to spare their son from the front line, they’d make a deal with authorities and turn their neighbors in.
Their son was spared from the front line, the neighbors were spared from their deception to the authorities, alas, the Jews weren’t granted such luxuries. The bullet holes on the outside of their homes were still visible in 1985.
So our question today is this –
Is it ever okay to lie? Should they (residents of Könken) have told the truth?
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