Cara Gibson
John Quiring, PhD
Phil 117 – 51412
8 June 2015
God vs Evil: The Holocaust
I believe in the sun when it is not shining.
I believe in love even when feeling it not.
I believe in God even when He is silent.
Eliezer L. Erhmann, ed., Readings in Modern Jewish History:
From the American Revolution to the Present, p. 232.
These tragic words were anonymously inscribed on the walls of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where several Jews were hiding from the Nazis. In a most profound way they raise the eternal issue of faith in a loving God both during and since the Holocaust. In fact, a more pressing question has emerged, namely whether God exists at all; and if He does, the Holocaust brings into question that either His goodness or His power to restrain evil must be diminished somehow.
David Wolf Silverman, writing from within the context of Conservative Judaism, maintains that after the Holocaust one must recognize that God is not all-powerful:
…show more content…
. . . It is contained in the key-word “Auschwitz,” which is used to refer to the terrible experience of European Jewry from 1933 to 1945, the extermination of men and women and children only on account of their having been born to a Jewish parent (or, in fact, having had a single Jewish grandparent). To put it simply: Where was God when these things happened? Jacob Neusner, ed., Understanding Jewish Theology: Classical Issues and Modern Perspectives, pp. 150, 163.
Rabbi Alan Luri summed it up rather well in an article written for the Huffington Post in 2012:
All Rabbis hear variations on the following questions: "How can anyone believe in God after the Holocaust? How can a supposedly loving God stand back and let such a horrible thing happen? How can you reconcile the death of even one innocent child with the existence of a just God?" For many, these questions are proof that a personal God does not
Niewyk, Donald . "The Will to Survive." In The Holocaust Problems and perspectives of Interpretation, ed. Donald L Niewyk. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 59-66.
“There was no God in Auschwitz. There were such horrible conditions that God decided not to go there.” Linda Breder, Holocaust survivor. If, all of a sudden, the population of Rio de Janeiro vanished one day, people would take notice almost instantly. However, when six million Jewish people were killed in the concentration camps during WWII, people turned a blind eye, even when they were fully aware of what was happening.
The Holocaust or the Ha-Shoah in Hebrew meaning ‘the day of the Holocaust and heroism’ refers to the period of time from approximately January 30,1933, when Adolf Hitler became the legal official of Germany, to May 8,1945. After the war was over in Europe, the Jews in Europe were being forced to endure the horrifying persecution that ultimately led to the slaughter of over 6 million Jews with about 1.5 million of them being children as well as the demolition of 5,000 Jewish communities.
For many educated people, learning about the Holocaust can send them feelings of sorrow or deep remorse. Not only for the meaning of the word, but why it is called that. The pure evil of the final solution, thought of and created by none other than Adolf Hitler, will never stop haunting people more than half a decade later. One of the prominent things that everyone missed in his highly sold auto-biography "My Struggle". The thought of solid hatrid found within the cover of the horrible book will always burn in the souls that it harmed from the day it began till the dawn of today.
During World War II there was event that lead to deaths of millions of innocent people. This even is known as the holocaust, millions of innocent people were killed violently, there was mass murders, rapes and horrific tortures. The question I will attempt to answer in the course of this paper is if the holocaust was a unique event in history. In my opinion there were other mass murders that people committed justified by the feeling of being threatened. But I don 't believe that any were as horrific and inhumane as Germany’s genocide of the Jewish people.
For some, it seems that the Holocaust in another lifetime, but for others it will be something they will never forget. Holocaust was a time for fighting. The Jewish would fight for the right to live as they were killed solely for being Jewish. The Holocaust began in 1939 and would continue through 1945. It was introduced by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, although he did not act alone. His mission would be to “exterminate” all minorities, but most abundantly, the Jews. Based on information given by About.com, it is estimated that 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust. Six million of these were Jews.
an And The Controversy Over The Bombing Of Auschwitz." Journal Of Ecumenical Studies 40.4 (2003): 370-380. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Jan. 2014 Rice, Rondall. "
An example would be the Cambodian Genocide which took place in 1975. A group of Communists, known as Khmer Rouge, took control over Cambodia. They targeted getting rid of Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims to create a society without competition. This is relatable to the Holocaust reason being Hitler’s motive was to rid of all the Jews because he thought they were dangerous to society and considered them not human. The Cambodians suffered through extreme torture and murders, and during this they prayed and prayed to their God to save them from their torture just like the Jews in the concentration camps, but God did not answer their prayers and left them to continue to be assaulted. Some of the Cambodian people could have taken their experiences to think, “Everything happens for a reason, God did this to test my faith and make me stronger.” While other Cambodian people were left with unanswered questions and resentment towards their god. With their faith shaken, the Jewish people questioned their faith. Faith is having a strong belief based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof, and the Jewish people began to question this spiritual connection they had been confident in for so long. They began to wonder why the merciful god they believed in showed them no mercy as they were brutally assaulted. The genocide greatly affected the Cambodian people's beliefs in Judaism, some
There is no doubt that the Holocaust is one of the best remembered and most studied genocides in human history. There are very few who would be puzzled by the mention of the Holocaust in today’s world as it’s impacts have been immense and lasting. Many lives were lost during this time, and many atrocities occurred- torture and persecution were pushed past the boundaries of most people’s imaginations. Throughout modern history, the Holocaust has been documented over and over again as the worst genocide- and perhaps even the worst crime- in human history. Many historians have even said it was a unique occurrence that is unparalleled by other crimes in human history. This being said, it is not difficult to argue this statement when observing and analyzing the many components of the Holocaust and of other horrible crimes that have happened.
The aftermath of the Holocaust left over six million Jews perished and the survivors in pain and anguish, each of their lives impacted forever by reliving the horrid events of this unspeakable tragedy every day. They needed to pick up the pieces to continue living by fleeing to different countries, assimilating into new cultures, and beginning new families to create happy memories. This being challenging for many of them, forced some of the survivors to suppress their emotions about the past in order to accomplish these newer lives while others to talk about it frequently. Each of them had their own methods to cope with the affects and thoughts they had after the Holocaust; their methods having its own advantages and disadvantages. This goes to show that the Holocaust survivors were affected more than ones mind
What is genocide? “Genocide is a deliberate, systematic destruction of racial cultural or political groups.”(Feldman 29) What is the Holocaust? “Holocaust, the period between 1933-1945 when Nazi Germany systematically persecuted and murdered millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many other people.”(Feldman 29) These two things tie into each other.The Holocaust was a genocide. Many innocent people were torn apart from their families, for many never to see them again. This murder of the “Jewish people of Europe began in spring 1941.”( Feldman 213) The Holocaust was one of the most harshest things done to mankind.
Gottfried, Ted, and Stephen Alcorn. Deniers of the Holocaust: Who They Are, What They Do, Why They Do It. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century, 2001. Print.
One cold, snowy night in the Ghetto I was woke by a screeching cry. I got up and looked out the window and saw Nazis taking a Jewish family out from their home and onto a transport. I felt an overwhelming amount of fear for my family that we will most likely be taken next. I could not go back to bed because of a horrid feeling that I could not sleep with.
..." (1829). Wiesel is saying that if God existed, why would he have allowed the Holocaust to happen? Of course, this is one question among many that will never be answered for him.
During the Holocaust the mass murder of jews was a worldwide tragedy and when a tragedy happens usually your first question is why? The two groups of devoted researchers for the Holocaust are split into the Intentionalist group and the Functionalist group. As said by Mimi-Cecilia Pascoe in Intentionalism and Functionalism: Explaining the Holocaust “The intentionalist position suffers greatly from a lack of adequate evidence, and consequently cannot prove Hitler’s intentions beyond reasonable doubt. On the other hand, the functionalist position is better able to compensate for the lack of evidence, and thus provides a more solid historical explanation for the Holocaust (Pascoe 1).” The on going argument of whether the Holocaust was intentional or a choice in the moment is the Intentionalist vs. Functionalist case and either side has many different ways of portraying their evidence on the topic; the arguments are both have convincing arguments but in