HIST103: World History (1600–Present)

Holocaust Theology

On account of the magnitude of the Holocaust, Christian and Jewish thinkers have re-examined the classical theological views on God's goodness and actions in the world. A field known as Holocaust Theology has evolved. Jewish responses have fallen into two categories.

The first is represented by figures such as Richard Rubenstein, Emil Fackenheim, and Elie Wiesel. They could not accept the traditional understanding that when Israel had flourished, she was being blessed by God, but when misfortune, such as the Exile, came, this was punishment for sin. Rubenstein spoke into an almost silent Jewish world on the topic of the Holocaust when he asked, "Where was God when the Jews were being murdered?" [17]

He offered an atheistic response in his "death of God" theology, stating that the Shoah had made it impossible to continue believing in a covenential God of history. Many simply wanted to survive so that, as it is often put, Hitler did not enjoy a posthumous victory.

Rubenstein suggested that post-Holocaust belief in God, in a divine plan, or in meaning is intellectually dishonest. Rather, one must assert one's own value in life. Although some survivors became atheists, this theological response has not proved to be popular.

Emil Fackenheim (1916-2003) (who escaped to Britain) suggests that God must be revealing something paradigmatic or epoch-making through the Holocaust, which we must discern. Some Jews link this with the creation of the State of Israel, where Jews are able to defend themselves. Drawing on the ancient Jewish concept of mending or repairing the world (tikkun olam). Fackenheim says it is the Jews' duty to ensure that evil does not prevail and that a new commandment that Hitler does not posthumously win is upheld. [18]

Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel suggests that most people pose the wrong question, which should be "Where was humanity during the Holocaust, not where was God?" "Where," he says, "was man in all this, and culture, how did it reach this nadir?" [19]

Rabbi Hugo Gryn also said the real question is, "Where was man in Auschwitz?" Although he admits that people often ask, "Where was God?" Gryn's answer to this latter question was, "I believe that God was there Himself – violated and blasphemed."

While in Auschwitz on Yom Kippur, he fasted and hid away and tried to remember the prayers that he had learned as a child at the synagogue. He asked God for forgiveness. Eventually, he says, "I dissolved in crying. I must have sobbed for hours… Then I seemed to be granted a curious inner peace… I believe God was also crying… I found God". [20] But it was not the God of his childhood who, as a child, he had expected miraculously to rescue the Jews. Rabbi Hugo Gryn found God in the camps, but a God who was crying. Other thinkers, both Christian and Jewish, in their reflection on the Shoah, have spoken of a Suffering God.

A second response has been to view the Shoah in the same way as other periods of persecution and oppression. Scholars such as Jacob Neusner, Eliezer Berkovits, and Eugene Borowitz have taken this view. Some ultra-orthodox put the blame for the Shoah on the unfaithfulness of Jews who had abandoned traditional Judaism in favor of other ideologies such as Socialism, Zionism, or various non-Orthodox Jewish movements, but most deny that anything Jews have done could merit such severe punishment.

Harold Kushner argued that God is not omnipotent and can not be blamed for humanity's exercise of free will or for massive evil in the world. [21] Eliezer Berkovits (1908-1992) revived the Kabbalistic notion that sometimes God inexplicably withdraws from the world to argue that during the Holocaust, God was "hidden." [22]

In a rare view that has not been adopted by any sizable element of the Jewish or Christian community, Ignaz Maybaum (1897-1976) has proposed that the Holocaust is the ultimate form of vicarious atonement. The Jewish people become, in fact, the "suffering servant" of Isaiah. The Jewish people suffer for the sins of the world. In his view: "In Auschwitz, Jews suffered vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind." Many Jews see this as too Christian a view of suffering; some Christians respond to the question, where was God when the Jews were murdered by saying that he was there with them, also suffering, in the gas chambers.

Art and Literature

German philosopher Theodor Adorno famously commented that "writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," and the Holocaust has indeed had a profound impact on art and literature for Jews and non-Jews.

Some of the more famous works are by Holocaust survivors or victims, such as Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, and Anne Frank, but there is a substantial body of post-holocaust literature and art in many languages; for example, the poetry of Paul Celan, who explicitly sought to meet Adorno's challenge.

The Holocaust has also been the subject of many films, including Oscar winners Schindler's List and Life Is Beautiful. There have been extensive efforts to document survivors' stories, in which a number of agencies have been involved.

Holocaust Memorial Days

In a unanimous vote, the United Nations General Assembly voted on November 1, 2005, to designate January 27 as the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust." 

January 27, 1945, is the day that the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. Even before the United Nations vote, January 27 had been observed as Holocaust Memorial Day in the United Kingdom since 2001 and in other countries, including Sweden, Italy, Germany, Finland, Denmark, and Estonia. Israel observes Yom HaShoah, the "Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust," on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, which generally falls in April. This Memorial Day is also commonly observed by Jews outside of Israel.