Book review: Prepare to be horrified

As I write this I've just read Leo Stein's Hitler Came For Niemoeller... and my first reaction was, maybe I should go back to my computer and play Call of Duty or Medal of Honour Allied Assault again. It seems Norman Vincent Peale got it right when he said, "If a man can read this and not be stirred to his depths, it is because he has no depths." I read through the entire account in one sitting. I couldn't put it down.
The book recounts the author's own imprisonment for implied criticism of Nazi ideals (a.k.a. high treason) and his meetings with the Evangelical pastor Martin Niemoeller, a former U-boat commander and now minister, with the courage to expose the Nazi monster for what is was. The torture he and Stein suffered is so horrifying nothing I say here will do it justice. Stein details Niemoeller's courageous reactions to the horrors around him, his comfort to fellow prisoners, and a strength rooted in the Faith no human effort can ever take away.
The writing wasn't my favourite style, but it's so good it doesn't detract from the bare honesty of the book in the slightest. Emotional reactions are kept to a minimum, allowing events to, well, speak for themselves. I'd always looked on that period as a black day for the Jewish people, one of torment and suffering which the world looked on all too late to prevent. And Christians were sidelined and ultimately saved from Nazi plans to destroy them. (And that was way before Pearl Harbour!)

Reading it as a Christian I was shocked. Heck, I had three impressions:

1. Had I been there the same cruelty and torture would've been shown to me. That's reason enough to stand beside our brothers and sisters who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ.

2. I am not worthy to be counted as having taken up my cross and followed the Lord.

3. God can accomplish more than we ever dreamed in the midst of suffering. "I am the Holy One, and I am among you." (Hosea 11:9) Anyone who sees suffering as proof of God's inexistence has these testimonies to account for.

Go on, read it. Be stirred. Be shaken. For God may yet use one who does mightily.