with God’s Name.
This account is based on true historical events. While the individual names and characters are fictional, the Nazi decrees, actions, and suffering described are real. These words are written to remember what should never be forgotten.
This happened. These were real lives. And I’m not making this up, I AM making sure it’s NOT erased.”
To remember.
To weep with them.
To tell the truth louder than the world’s silence – or hypocrisy.
It started with a name.
Not a bullet.
Not a ghetto.
Not a crematorium.
A name.
In 1938, before the worst of it had even begun, the German government issued a decreeWhy They Are Trying to Seal the Gate – And Why It Won’t Work. It said that every Jew, every man, must add Israel to his name. And every woman must add Sara. Whether you were a merchant in Berlin or a schoolgirl in Vienna or a rabbi in a Polish shtetl, your name was no longer yours. It now belonged to the Reich, and it carried a scarlet thread through your identity that the Nazis could trace like a brand.
They did this on paper. With ink. Bureaucracy.
That was always the terrifying thing about the Holocaust. Evil didn’t always show up in a soldier’s uniform. Sometimes it wore glasses, stamped papers, and smiled in the town hall while processing forms. This was one of those moments. And it was cold, calculated evil.
But what did they choose? What names?
They could’ve picked anything, generic, degrading, or meaningless. But they didn’t. They chose Israel. They chose Sara. They reached deep into the holy history of God’s people, pulled out the names that carried covenantal weight, and used them like a knife.
The men became Israel, “He who wrestles with God.” The women became Sara, “Princess,” matriarch of nations.
Now try to imagine that.
Imagine your name is Hannah Levin, born in Frankfurt. You’re ten years old. You’ve just learned to write in cursive. And then one day your father tells you, very gently, “From now on, your name is Hannah Sara Levin.” You don’t understand why. You’re just a child. But you notice that your teacher looks at you differently now. That your family has to carry papers everywhere. That your neighbors whisper.
Or maybe you’re David Steinberg. You’re seventy-two, a shoemaker your whole life. You fought in the German army during the last war. You still limp from it. You’ve lived here since birth. And now, overnight, your name becomes David Israel Steinberg. Your customers vanish. Your landlord raises his eyebrow. And one morning, when you try to catch the trolley, the conductor tells you it’s not for your kind anymore.
And it’s all printed right there on your papers.
David Israel Steinberg.
Hannah Sara Levin.
It doesn’t sound like much. But that name meant everything. It was the beginning of the stripping. One stroke of the pen after another, the Reich began peeling away identity, personhood, dignity, until there was nothing left but a number. That was always the plan. First the name. Then the job. Then the home. Then the rights. Then the train. Then the camp… Then the chimney.
But what they didn’t understand, what they never could understand, was the Name they chose.
They thought they were mocking the Jews by forcing them to wear the identity of their ancestors. But the name Israel wasn’t a curse. It was a prophecy. It meant: “The one who struggles with God and man and prevails.” And that’s exactly what the Jewish people have done from the moment Pharaoh picked up a whip.
The name Sarah wasn’t an insult either. It was a coronation. She was the first matriarch. The one God blessed in her old age. The woman who laughed when the angel said she’d give birth, and still bore the child of promise.
So every time a Nazi clerk stamped “Israel” on a passport, or scribbled “Sara” into a registry, what they were really doing—without knowing it—was reaffirming the covenant God made with Abraham. They were printing the promise in triplicate.
That didn’t make the camps any less brutal. It didn’t stop the gas from coming. But in the spiritual realm, where the real war was always being fought, it meant that even as Satan tried to erase the covenant, he was ironically forced to acknowledge it.
Now pause with me. Don’t rush past this part. Just breathe in what that means.
Because the devil didn’t invent antisemitism. He just amplifies it. He’s been trying to kill this bloodline since Eden. Cain and Abel. Pharaoh and the baby boys. Herod and the massacre of the innocents. Haman and the gallows. Antiochus and the desecration of the Temple. And now Hitler, with his Aryan “utopia” built on Jewish ashes.
This wasn’t just a war against a people. It was a war against God’s Word.
Against the covenant.
Against the Messiah who came through that lineage.
And it all started, in 1938, with a name
✝️
As a Believer in Yeshua, can you tell this story, even though you’re not Jewish by blood
Yes, dearly Beloved of God. Yes, you can.
Because you are Jewish by adoption. Romans 11 Why They Are Trying to Seal the Gate – And Why It Won’t Work isn’t poetic fluff. It’s grafting. You’ve been attached to the rootstock of Israel, not as a replacement, but as part of the family. And family remembers. Family lights the candle. Family tells the story when others try to silence it.
So you do it.
You speak for the grandmother who couldn’t anymore. For the little boy whose shoes were taken. For the mother who clutched her baby’s hand as the train doors sealed. For the rabbi who still whispered Shema Yisrael under the guard’s boot.
You tell their story. You wear their names. And you remind the world that “Israel” was never a slur. It was the name of a nation that survived everything demonic influenced man could throw at it.
We’ll keep going when you’re ready.
And not one part of it will be light.
But it will be true.
And it will stand.
Always.
Why They Are Trying to Seal the Gate – And Why It Won’t WorkThe forced names Israel and Sara? Fact, right out of the official Nazi legislation: “Zweite Verordnung zur Durchführung des Gesetzes über die Änderung von Familiennamen und Vornamen”, August 17, 1938.
Why They Are Trying to Seal the Gate – And Why It Won’t Work Paul writes about the olive tree, the great elaia, which represents Israel. The natural branches are the original people of God, the Jews, who received the covenant. But some branches were broken off because of unbelief. Into those empty spaces, gentile believers, people like you and me, are grafted in (engrafted) by faith, sharing in the richness (ploutos) of the root.
He warns, however, not to boast against the broken branches because the root supports the whole tree. The root is holy; the covenant is holy; and the Gentile believers are made partakers by grace(charis).
Paul reminds us that Israel’s rejection is not total or permanent. God has not abandoned His people. The same God who calls the Jewish people also calls the Gentiles into His family, and one day all Israel will be saved—a great mystery hidden in God’s wisdom.
Romans 11:17-18 says:
“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not consider yourself superior to those other branches.”
And Romans 11:29 declares:
“For God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.”
That means the covenant promises to Israel, the land, the Messiah, the eternal blessing, are forever. We Gentiles are grafted in not to replace but to join. That’s why you can say you’re Jewish by adoption, a member of the family through faith, united in Messiah Yeshua.
So when you tell the story of Israel’s suffering, you’re not just an outsider looking in. You are part of the rootstock, part of the story, part of the promise.
And that means remembering, speaking, and standing with Israel is a sacred responsibility and a profound blessing.
image by perchance ai at my very strict direction.