REPORTS DURING WORLD WAR II: A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
The following are excerpts from two of our publications, The
Chosen People and The Shepherd of Israel,
during World War II.
JOSEPH HOFFMAN COHN
Dearly Beloved Friends:
Sorrows fill our own souls as we read of the calamities that
have befallen the Jews in the present hour in Austria, in
Germany, in Roumania, in Poland. Here is tragedy beyond
the power of pen to describe. A friend in Vienna wrote us, of
course very guardedly, just a glimpse of what had been going
on in that terrible Nazi putsch by which Hitler suddenly seized
Austria. We in America, although undergoing our own hours
of depression and suffering, still know too little of what are
the agonies of this harassed people. On the day of the swift
sweeping down of Hitler upon Vienna, the Jewish population
was panic stricken, they were caught like rats in a trap, for they
had no warning of the impending disaster. Immediately, they
threw together what few things they could, and then began
an exodus such as perhaps took place on the night when they
were delivered out of Egypt. The roadways out of Vienna were
choked with Jewish men, women, and children, packs on
backs, hurrying to escape from an Austria gone mad with Nazi
for the Suddenly all frontiers poor Jews only found that they must return to whatever might
The were crowded Jews, who had gathered together what possessions they could,
were rushing likewise to frontier trains were stopped, every Jew was dragged out, searched
stripped possession
The Nazis boasted that they had over million They loosed these hapless Jews
them they they A SHATTERED JEWRY AND A SILENT GOD
JOSEPH HOFFMAN COHN
Our nation bleeds. It bleeds in Germany, it bleeds in
Roumania, it bleeds in Italy, in fact it is hard to find a land
under the sun where Jewish blood does not run like rivers of
water. The Jews of the world are terror-stricken, and run hither
and thither, and do not seem to know what to do. Rabbis keep
stuffing them with false hopes, and they mislead them into
blatant demands for certain “rights” as to Palestine or other
places. All these tactics only make matters worse, and the Jews
find themselves sinking deeper and deeper in the quick sands
of world hate.
Yet, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not dead—the
God of Elijah is not dead. Our fathers, the patriarchs and
prophets, turned to God in time of trouble, they obeyed His
word and God delivered them. Let us also turn to that God
and do what He told us to do, obey His only begotten Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and then having done all, in humble childlike
obedience to Him, we can with the fullest confidence look to
Him for deliverance. If the Word of God is true, and if Jewish
history counts for anything, when that hour comes, the world
will witness the most wonderful salvation that ever it has seen
in six thousand years of hectic and bewildering history.
Chosen People andThe H
The Chosen People—May 1938
together began
an exodus such took place when were delivered ThThThThThThThThe roadways out Vienna choked Jewish and packs to from gone mad hate for the Jew. Suddenly all frontiers were closed, and these
poor only found they return to whatever await them.ThThThThThThThe trains were crowded with the better-class
gathered what possessions and were rushing likewise to escape. At every frontier the
trains every Jew was dragged searched
down to the skin, and stripped of every possession he had.
ThThThThThThThThThThThThe Nazis boasted that they had thus collected over twenty
million marks!ThThThThThThThThThThThey then loosed these hapless Jews
and told them they might go where they would!
The Shepherd of Israel—June 1939
4 The Chosen People | MAY 2019