On January 20, 1942, a group of high-ranking German officials met on the outskirts of Berlin in the small suburb of Wannsee.  The purpose of their meeting was to discuss ways to solve the Jewish problem in the areas of German occupation.  At the time of their discussion, over 11 million Jews were living in nations controlled by Germany.  As the war continued on, policies focused on isolating Jews.  Already by the early 1940’s, Jews had been marginalized… many placed into ghettos.  Homes and possessions had been taken.  Neighborhoods looted.  Freedoms eliminated.  Families were often separated, and many were forced to live in crowded conditions where food and supplies were scarce.  Jews were seen by some, as being an inferior race of people, whose very presence weakened the strength of the Aryan race.  They were deemed less than human and the growing numbers all across Europe created problems that needed a solution.

          The Wannsee Conference was convened.  Powerful and cruel men sat around a table for just an hour and a half as they worked on what would be known as “The Final Solution.”  The answer that seemed best, was the total annihilation of all Jews.  Jews were to be rounded up and transported to places like Treblinka, or Auschwitz’s-Birkenau, or other “death camps” to be exterminated in the quickest and most efficient way possible.  Killing squads would be empowered to roam the countryside, going from village to village killing any and all Jews they could find.  Their decision that day would result in the murder of approximately six-million Jews, representing two-thirds of the pre-war Jewish population in Europe. With their discussion ended and the decision made, the men who had been seated at the conference table, then stood around drinking cognac and smoking cigars, celebrating their achievement.

            I recently stood in the vast open space that had once been the Nazi death camp at Treblinka.  Unlike concentration or forced-labor camps where prisoners were exploited for labor, the primary purpose of Treblinka was to kill as many people as quickly as possible.  Victims were transported by train and upon arrival, were deceived into believing they were entering a transit or disinfection camp.  They were forced to strip naked, have their heads shaved, and then marched into gas chambers disguised as showers. The main building contained 10 gas chambers into which each chamber a thousand people would be tightly packed.  The chambers soon filled with carbon monoxide exhaust fumes.  It took less than 15 minutes for each “batch” of victims to suffocate.  Their bodies were then burned and buried in mass graves.  For most, the entire process of stepping off the train, to being brutally murdered in the gas chambers, took about ½ hour.  As the bodies were pulled from the chambers, Jewish prisoners who had been trained to do so, looked into the victims’ mouths and extracted any teeth that contained gold.  It was a hell on earth for both the victims and the Jewish prisoners who were forced to participate in the slaughter and indignities of their kinsmen. Very few escaped the horror of the camp to tell their stories to the world.

            Hitler and his demented devotees believed they had developed a “final solution,” but in reality, it was no solution at all.  In fact, their actions only added to the ills of this world.  Rather than solve anything, they added an even more heinous depth of antisemitic thought.  With their actions, they reinforced hatred, bigotry, prejudice, inhumanity, cruelty, and strife into a world were such emotions already existed at unfathomable levels.  Even 80 years later, the reality of the Holocaust is hard to believe.  The stories make our hearts break and our souls feel the pain.  As I stood silently in the tall grass of a meadow that still holds the mass graves of 900,000 lives, I heard the voices of their angels beg for remembrance and for a better world.

            In the final days of the war, America developed a final solution of her own.  To bring the war to a quick end, nuclear bombs rained down on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Within days Japan was brought to her knees and the Japanese leaders offered an unconditional surrender.  Yes, the war ended soon thereafter, but at what cost and what rationale?  The final solution was far from being final.  Wars still rage on, lives still end in tragic ways, and peace is far from becoming a reality.

            Is there a Final Solution?  A solution for all that plagues our world?  Is there a final solution for pain, hatred, prejudice, selfishness, anger, strife, and all the other seemingly unconquerable emotions that force humans to treat one another with such a lack of civility and dignity?  Yes.  The solution does exist.  It is inked onto every Torah scroll ever written, every Bible ever printed.  It has been voiced a thousand times on the lips of every Jew, and proclaimed from every Christian pulpit.  It is a commandment dictated by Holy God Himself who declares, “You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength… and love your neighbor as yourself.”  Love is indeed the final solution.

            I offer that response, not with flippancy or childish naivety.  It’s not intended to be a “feel good” phrase or a Pollyanna response to the ills of our time.  I offer it from lived experience.  I have lived long enough to know that warfare is not the answer, nor is prejudicial division, nor thoughts of racial superiority, nor world domination, nor mass murder, nor overly zealous expressions of faith.  The solution is to love each other with same intensity which which we are called to love God.  Supreme love.  Costly love.  Unselfish love.  Unending love.  Love takes intentionality, devotion, respect, dignity, and understanding.  Love breaks out when we see the image of God in the face of every life we encounter, offering to the person standing opposite us, our best selves and not our worst humanity.

            There is a power in love.  It is stronger than hate, stronger than any army, stronger than the evil thoughts of men. Its light can shatter the deepest darkness, bind up the deepest wounds, and restore that which is broken in all of us.  It is indeed, the Final Solution.  It is the only solution.  May God grant us the ability to experience its reality and the courage to share it abundantly.