Today was filled with meetings. Our first meeting was with the leadership team of the Christian radio ministry in the nearby town of Gleiwitz. This expansive radio ministry reaches out to much of southern Poland and in other key locations throughout the country. One of the areas where they broadcast is in the city of Auschwitz, the location of two of the concentration camps that claimed the lives of millions of Jews. It's incredible to imagine how a city known for such terrible atrocities would now be blanketed with the message of Christ's love.
What was fascinating to me was the trip later in the morning to the tower where the antenna for the radio station is perched blaring out the signal that is heard throughout much of this country. It is the tower that was the focal point of an event that launched the invasion of Poland by Nazi forces on September 1st, 1939.
On the night before (August 31, 1939) at 8:00 PM a few armed SS men dressed in civilian clothes and identifying themseles as Polish insurgents attacked the German radio station located here. This top secret operation had been planned for months by the Nazi regieme in their efforts to create provocation that would justify their invasion of Poland. A Polish inhabitant in the area had been captured and was killed at the station and left as "evidence" that the raid had been carried out by Poles who broadcast that they had commandeered the station and it was in now in their hands.
German radio stations broadcast that army troops were approaching. The governments of France and Great Britain were informed that Poland had started the war by this act of provocation. The following day, September 1st, Hitler delivered a speech where he justified the invasion of Poland in an effort to ensure the safety of Germany's western borders.
Everything in the radio station is exactly the way it was in 1939. The wooden tower, the tallest wooden construction in the world at 111 meters was built in 1935. It is conscientiously maintained and checked every year. And at the top, an antenna broadcasting the love of God to this incredible country. What a solemn reminder of an event that cost millions their lives.
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