As an 8th grader, I read Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. I would say that this book changed my life because it made me aware of how easy it is to be deceived and fall into sin.
I am a German American (my great-great grandparents came from Germany and settled in a German-speaking area of Illinois). I was a poster child for the Aryan race–blonde, blue-eyed, tall, well-built, strong, no defects. (Now I’m fat, so I would have ended up on the left side of Herr Doktor Mengele!)
As a young teenager, after I finished Mein Kampf, I asked myself, "If I had lived in Germany during the 3rd Reich, would I have gone along with Hitler, saluted him, joined the Deutsche Madchen, reported people who violated Nazi laws, supported the killing of the inferior races, etc.? Or would I have resisted the evil of National Socialism? Would I have even RECOGNIZED the evil of National Socialism?
Forty years later, I continue to ask myself these questions. It’s my belief that we all need to ask ourselves these questions.
Mein Kampf made me very cautious about jumping on bandwagons and going along with my peers. I found that I examined EVERYTHING before getting involved. E.g., certain rock songs, teen idols, books, fashion trends, tv shows, kids in my school, habits (e.g. drugs, smoking, alcohol) etc.–I examined these and if I felt they were evil or would lead me to evil, I refused to participate.
I’m still like this. I believe it’s one reason why I am Catholic now after 40 years of evangelical Protestantism. As a Protestant, I never quite “fit in.” I refused to follow after a lot of the Christian celebrities, and interestingly, many of them have fallen away from the faith. I never did become enamoured of “pop” Christian culture: CCM, a lot of the books, seminars, women’s speakers, etc.
I often objected to certain interpretations of the Bible that didn’t seem quite “right” to me. And I got involved with Catholic-friendly organizations (e.g., Bread for the World) that Protestants called “liberal.”
I was very opposed to the isolationist viewpoint the some of our churches held; i.e., do not mix with people from other churches, as they will drag you down into sin. I admonished the pastor of our Christian and MIssionary Alliance Church to DROP this stand and GET INVOLVED with local pro-life efforts, even if they DID mean that we would have to work with C-C-Catholics! And eventually, he did, and then our church started becoming more pro-life once the pastor got involved.
Because I was a pianist (a person of great value in Protestant churches!) and I was enthusiastically involved with many children’s and youth ministries, people in my churches were tolerant of my “different” viewpoints. I and my husband were often called “the fringe” by other Christians in our Protestant churches, but they loved us anyway. Unfortunately, eventually we became part of a church that DIDN’T love us. A woman minister in that church was threatened by our attitudes, made up lies about us, and we were thrown out of that church.
Eventually we were led into the Catholic Church, where so far, all my questions have good answers that I can accept.
So I guess, in a perverse way, I should be grateful to Hitler for writing Mein Kampf and causing a young teenaged girl to question everything, an attitude that eventually led me to the Catholic Church.
When I was a teenager, there were very few “Holocaust” books written for children and teens. One book that did come out when I was in high school was The Hiding Place byCorrie Ten Boom. This wonderful book was a life changer for me, too, because it showed me real, practical Christianity that was willing to work and die for others.
Now there are lots of holocaust books for kids (I’ve even written one!). But these two books, Mein Kampf and The Hiding Place were all I had, and they did the job of changing my life.
