Sid Roth - This Holocaust Survivor Wanted to Burn Down Churches with Rose Price
Sid Roth: This Holocaust survivor wanted to burn down churches. Next on this edition of “It's Supernatural!”
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter, and I'm here with a Holocaust survivor, Rose Price. And I've been reading books and you've been reading books lately, too, about the Holocaust. And let me read you something that happened in Poland where Rose was born. This is a book by Dr. Michael Brown, "Our Hands Are Stained with Blood" and let me read this to you. In a little city in Poland, September, 2, 1942, it illustrates the depth of Christian hatred of the Jew that actually helped make the Holocaust possible. "The old, the sick, pregnant women, small children, 2,000 innocent Jewish souls were shot and brutally thrown into freshly dug graves, one on top of the other. Many of them were still alive. For most of the children they didn't even waste a bullet. They were just thrown in alive, and together with those who were only wounded finished their lives under the pressure of the human mass. The next morning a few of the wounded were able to crawl out of the graves and managed to walk a few meters, but died shortly thereafter. The larger grave contained a thousand bodies and the two smaller graves contained 500 bodies each. We learned of this massacre from the Polish police themselves. On the following," get this now, "On the following Sunday they went to church with their families as if nothing had happened. They suffered no guilt feelings. After all, they were only murdering Jews with the blessing of their priests who inflamed them from their pulpits on Sundays". Rose Price, growing up in a little city in Poland, what is your recollection of Jesus?
Rose Price: There are many bruises on my body “in the name of Jesus”. I was hit in the head with a cross with Jesus on it, by a priest in a habit. And my crime was that I walked on the sidewalk where the church was.
Sid Roth: A Jew wasn't allowed to walk over there.
Rose Price: No, because I defiled the church. I was seven or eight years old at the time.
Sid Roth: Tell me a bit about what Jewish lifestyle in Poland was like before Hitler.
Rose Price: Oh it was wonderful. It was family. I mean, I came out of a very orthodox background. Almost most of the males, they would become rabbis. The synagogue, before the building of a synagogue, was in my grandfather's house. So the orthodoxy, and God, and Jewishness, and family, all came together.
Sid Roth: But then all of a sudden, something happened. What was your first recollection when things started to change?
Rose Price: Well Anti-semitism I always knew. I was called “Christ killer”, I was called “dirty Jew”. I was hit with stones when I would go to the public school, so I knew I was different. And then in 1939, September 1, then it really, it was happening. That's when Germany invaded Poland. And within a short time we were thrown out of school; we were thrown out.
Sid Roth: What were you told when you were thrown out of school?
Rose Price: Actually, we were told never to come back. Like, “You Jews do not come back to the school any more”, and the next thing, we were thrown out of our home into the ghetto; and the very next thing, I'm not giving you time zones; I don't remember how many weeks, how many months, and the very next thing, we were picked up and were put to work in the ammunition factory.
Sid Roth: Were you separated from your family?
Rose Price: At that time, yes. My sister and I, five cousins and one aunt, we were all caught together and put to work in the ammunition factory.
Sid Roth: Could you put it together what was happening to you or why this was happening?
Rose Price: I couldn't understand. I was 10-1/2, 11 years old. The only thing I knew is “I want my mommy.” And the day they held us back in the camp, they didn't allow us to come back; I didn't want to go to work. I held on to my mommy's dress, and I was holding on to that dress until about a year ago. I didn't even know I was holding on to the dress. But no, I could not put it together.
Sid Roth: So tell me what life was like in the concentration camp.
Rose Price: Oh Lord. Well we worked around, sometimes around the clock. We were constantly beaten. We had to make so many boxes a day of ammunition and if not, you never left the machine; you had to make it if you had to stay a whole week without stopping. Our food consisted on one slice of bread, a quarter of an inch thick, and one cup of coffee, and sometimes a cup of soup. The tortures, every Saturday afternoon we would be marched up to the upper room, and this is what they called it; “the upper room”. And everything, I want you to know, was done “in the name of Jesus”.
Sid Roth: You went into one concentration camp, you were telling me, outside of Dachau, that... what did it say on the archway?
Rose Price: No, on the archway it said, "Work makes your life free". A funny thing; we worked, we were not free. But then there was, in Jurgen, Dachau, was a sign across the camp where it says, "You killed our God Jesus Christ, we kill you". So why not? The Jew has been killed in the name of Jesus for the last 2,000 years.
Sid Roth: Tell me, what are the worst things you can remember happening to you personally in the camp?
Rose Price: There are so many. I think the one with experimentations.
Sid Roth: What kind of experimentations?
Rose Price: Well we were undressed in Bergen-Belsen, and stayed in the snow for 24 hours. I know it started at nighttime, and we stayed a whole night and a whole day, and many, many people died; fell. And that's how I survived. Their bodies fell against mine. And they would come every so often to take blood to the whole experiment was how quickly could the blood freeze, and the people died.
Sid Roth: How could man be so inhumane to man? How can a man sink so low as to experiment on humans whose only crime was that they were born Jewish? We'll be back in just a moment.
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth your investigative reporter. I'm speaking with Rose Price, a Jewish woman who went through Hitler's concentration camp. Rose, you explain how you had so little food. There was one day in the camp where they had these sugar beets, which you weren't allowed to get. But what happened?
Rose Price: Well I was digging them out of the ground.
Sid Roth: You weren't allowed to eat them though.
Rose Price: No, no. But I stole. That's when I learned how to steal. And we went through the guard; and if he caught you, you got beaten or killed; and if you're not, you got some food, because Bergen-Belsen didn't have any food. And he looked at me, and I guess the guard knew that I did it because all of a sudden I was fat around the middle, because I had a string tied around, and he let me go.
Sid Roth: Why?
Rose Price: I don't know. I don't know. But it was a miracle that he didn't kill me because he knew that I had the sugar beets.
Sid Roth: There was one time you were punished by being in sewer water?
Rose Price: Yeah. And that was, I walked across the camp and, you know, like, the guard... not the guard, but the commander would sit and shoot anybody who was walking or whomever he could hit. And we would walk across the camp. And I was smiling; I don't know why I was smiling. And because I was smiling, they put me in a tank of live sewer, and I had to stand there around the clock on my toes because the sewer kept coming. And if I would have stood on my feet, I would have drowned in it. Until today I still have a very hard time; certain smells, certain odors make me very sick.
Sid Roth: Rose, people, intelligent people, so-called intelligent people, PhDs, are stating that not, six million Jews did not die in the Holocaust; there was not gas. What would you say to them?
Rose Price: Okay. I have a question for them. Where was I for five years, from 1940, beginning of '40 until 1945 in May? I could tell them where I was. I was in six different camps. The gas containers; the open evidence in Auschwitz or German, the open evidence in Treblinka. And if they do read a little bit, they could go into the history and see that the commander from Auschwitz went to Treblinka to learn how to kill quickly with how much gas; that there could go 10,000 people a day to be gassed. That's how fast it worked. Where are my parents? Where is my little sister? She was six years old, and I just found out last year how she died. And yes, it hurts because she was buried alive. She was digging sand in Treblinka with other little children and the top layer fell on her. And they never rescued her, and my mommy had to stand and watch her little baby die; suffocate. So anybody telling me there was no Holocaust, let them answer those questions.
Sid Roth: And at that time, what was your feeling about God, who you loved so much as a little child, in Judaism?
Rose Price: I couldn't stand being near a godly person because I said there is no God. No loving God, what my mother taught me, would allow this hell to happen to me, and I just gave up God completely and utterly.
Sid Roth: And a miracle happened. You survived.
Rose Price: Yes.
Sid Roth: Why did you think you survived? How did you survive and so many others didn't?
Rose Price: Well for many, many years I was asking the same question, “Why is God punishing me”?, because I felt so guilty of surviving. There were more worthy people than I to survive.
Sid Roth: And as you went out of that concentration camp, you literally wanted to burn down churches?
Rose Price: Yeah.
Sid Roth: Why?
Rose Price: Because Jesus is there. I suffered enough in the name of Jesus.
Sid Roth: We're going to be back in just a moment and find out how she really came to know not the Jesus portrayed by people that called themselves his followers, but the real Jesus she came to know. We'll be right back after this.
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth your investigative reporter. I'm here with Rose Price. We're going to find out how this woman who wanted to burn down churches now speaks in them about the real Jesus. But let's find out who's on next week. Janie in the control room, who's up?
Janie: You'll be interviewing a man by the name of Jeffrey Weiss who has uncovered how and why the church has hidden its Jewish roots for 2000 years.
Sid Roth: I'm really looking forward to that. Thank you, Janie. Now Rose, you come to America, you get married, you become active in the synagogue right across the street. You were... were you the president?
Rose Price: I worked up to presidency.
Sid Roth: So if you're not even believing in God, why were you in the synagogue?
Rose Price: I was a good social Jew.
Sid Roth: Okay. So one day your daughter comes home and she says to her mother, "I believe in Jesus".
Rose Price: Yes.
Sid Roth: What happened?
Rose Price: Well after they revived me, I, after three days I threw her out.
Sid Roth: Your own daughter?
Rose Price: My own daughter; I threw her out.
Sid Roth: Why?
Rose Price: She went to my enemy. Because “in the name of Jesus” all the atrocities were done.
Sid Roth: So you kicked your own daughter out.
Rose Price: Yes.
Sid Roth: And then shortly, your younger daughter, same thing.
Rose Price: Same thing. And my husband.
Sid Roth: Your husband went to check on the two girls.
Rose Price: Yeah.
Sid Roth: And what did he find out when he went to check?
Rose Price: That they were all sitting on the floor and praying for me, and he felt so bad that he sat down and he prayed. Now my husband wasn't a praying man. I couldn't get him into the synagogue.
Sid Roth: You're telling me he believed in Jesus?
Rose Price: Yeah.
Sid Roth: Okay. So you got a family... Oh no.
Rose Price: Yeah.
Sid Roth: Can you picture that? She's got her whole family now believes in Jesus. Did you go to the rabbi for help?
Rose Price: Oh yes, oh yes. I was running to the rabbi day and night until I went there with Isaiah 53. Then he threw me out.
Sid Roth: Woah. Slow down. Why did a rabbi... you're the president of the Sisterhood, why would he throw you out?
Rose Price: Because a Jewish woman does not read Isaiah 53.
Sid Roth: But that's in the Jewish Scriptures!
Rose Price: But that doesn't matter. It doesn't read... you don't have to read that. You're not supposed to.
Sid Roth: So that made you a Believer because he threw you out?
Rose Price: Well that made me angry enough to pick up my daughter's Bible, which it was a King James at the time, to go down the basement and start reading both Bibles.
Sid Roth: Why would you go in the basement?
Rose Price: So nobody would see me reading the Bible. Because you're a modern Jew, you don't read that stuff. And I started reading the King James, and I started with Matthew, and I was looking for “the killer Jesus”.
Sid Roth: And what did you find?
Rose Price: I found a lamb. I couldn't find a killer. You know, He loves us so much.
Sid Roth: And then you got invited.
Sid Roth: A very wealthy man invited you over his house for a party.
Rose Price: Right, his birthday party.
Sid Roth: His birthday party, and the party was, he saw you in another room. He walked up, he started talking to you. What happened?
Rose Price: Well he wanted to pray for me and I said, "Nobody prays for me or to me, or around me". He said, "Do you mind if I pray"? I said, "I don't care if you stand on your feet, on your head, it's your house". The carpets were thick enough. And this man started praying and Debbie started praying, and all of a sudden, I don't know where I was from 10:00 to 2:00 in the morning. But when I came to me, I felt different. The only thing I remember is that a big, big heavy stone rolled off my back; big heavy stone. And then I was saying, for six months I was going around like a split personality, and I was saying, “Yes I believe, no I don’t. I can’t. I can’t. I cannot fight this any more… “ And then I went into my closet; literally, I went into my closet and I said, "You prove yourself now, either, or. I cannot be split any more". And he proved himself. He is the Messiah. He is the Jewish Messiah.
Sid Roth: How does he differ from the Jesus that you thought he was?
Rose Price: He's not a killer. He doesn't hate me. He loves me. He died for me. We all need a blood sacrifice.
Sid Roth: And then I invited Rose to go to Berlin, Germany with me because there was a gathering of Christians, and they asked me to find some speakers. I suggested Rose Price. She did not want to go. Why didn't you want to go, Rose?
Rose Price: To go back to that accursed land, to Germany, speak on forgiveness? Come on now, have mercy on me.
Sid Roth: But you and your husband and I were on that plane headed to Berlin.
Rose Price: Oh it was a long plane flight. It was hard.
Sid Roth: But you know something, when you went out in that big stadium, it was the stadium, by the way, that Hitler said they would rule forever from, and in that stadium, there were Jewish flags waving; young Christians, German Christians. Listen to this: Young German Christians with Jewish stars. What effect did that have on you?
Rose Price: Well definitely, because I took off my star, you took off yours, and we went to Germany, and he had German people wearing the Jewish symbols. I mean, it's kind of funny to show. It had a big effect on me, yes.
Sid Roth: And after you spoke there, a man came up to you, and what did he say?
Rose Price: Well he was one of six or seven men, but this particular man asked me to forgive him because he was a guard in Dachau.
Sid Roth: You were in Dachau.
Rose Price: I was in Dachau, yes.
Sid Roth: What did, at that moment, be real right now, and I know you are; I know you are. What went through your mind when this...
Rose Price: Kill him.
Sid Roth: Why?
Rose Price: Because his job was punishment, and his mildest punishment was throwing us into the mud with face down and step on us, and break the bones, because we were just bones; skin and bones, and many, many of the people just remained laying there. And beating us; constantly beating us. And here he is, kneeling in front of me.
Sid Roth: What was he asking for?
Rose Price: To forgive him. And I thought to myself, "I'll forgive you. I'm going to send you where you wanted me to go". I mean, very simple. I didn't even remember I had spoken unforgiveness. I was so semi-conscious; I only knew this guy hit me, this guy hurt me, and I have to break his neck, and that's the opportunity I have. And I put my hands out, and then the Lord just took my hands and put them back. That's when Peter, Corrie ten Boom's nephew, dubbed me "the Jewish Corrie ten Boom" when he saw my hands go back.
Sid Roth: So your hands went back.
Rose Price: Back this way.
Sid Roth: And then what happened?
Rose Price: The man got up, and I said something in German for the first time, because I haven't spoken German, and I said, "Okay, I forgive you". But I really didn't mean it. It took me a while to learn to forgive. But I could say now, I totally forgive; not just the Germans, but also the Polish.
Sid Roth: How can you do that, Rose? You lost almost a hundred members of your family. How could you do that?
Rose Price: Rose Price can't, but the Rose Price in the Lord has to, and I had made a decision to serve the Lord, not me. And if I serve the Lord, I have to serve Him the way He wants me to. I went back to Poland in forgiveness; I went back to Germany in hate, but came out in forgiveness.
Sid Roth: What did that guard say to you the next day after you forgave him?
Rose Price: That that's the first time he slept since the war began. And by the way, that guard became a street evangelist. He saved thousands of druggies, prostitutes, runaway children.
Sid Roth: The love of God, to forgive that guard. Forget Rose Price forgiving that guard; God forgave that guard. You see, we humans might have difficulty forgiving, but God loves us all equally. You know, when you hear the phrase, “He's a good God”, that's true. When you hear the phrase, “He's not a respecter of persons”, which means He loves you as much as He loves Rose Price, as much as he loves me. He's got so much love that if He could take his arms right now, and He can and will by his spirit, and just embrace you; just put His arms around you. If you want to cry, you can cry. If you want to tell Him what hurts you, you can tell Him what hurts you. He is real. He does care for you. He does have a purpose for your life. Say, “Jesus, I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. Come inside of me. Restore me to God the Father.” And He will give you His love that will allow you to forgive, allow you to be free, allow you to have a purpose, allow you to have a destiny, allow you to have joy in this life, allow you to have “shalom”, peace, in this life; allow you to have destiny, purpose; purpose. There's a purpose for your life.