Where was God during the Holocaust?

Answer 1

Apparently out to lunch.

Answer 2

I don't believe in an all-powerful God, but I do believe in a God who is present with those who suffer, so I think God was with those who were killed during the Holocaust.

There are lots of different great takes on this question, including Richard Rubenstein's _After Auschwitz_, which argues that God died in the Holocaust. Also Elie Wiesel's _The Trial of God_ in which people in a concentration camp put God on trial for the holocaust and return a guilty verdict...

Answer 3

I've spoken with many survivors. The stories are heart-wrenching and many are inspirational and uplifting. Those who survived basically hold one of two opinions. Those who focused on the death and destruction generally feel that God abandoned them. Those who focused on survival and their own humanity found God to be an intimate partner in the camps.

There are many questions about the holocaust that are beyond human reckoning to answers. But suffice it to say that those who sought out God, found Him even in the midst of that hell. Not all survived, but all were saved (not in the Christian sense). Those who could only see death and destruction were lost.

A famous story from a survivor talking to a rabbi after the liberation. The survivor was bitter, anger and hate running through him. He said to the rabbi that God must be a fantasy...and as proof he cited an individual who had managed to smuggle a pair of tefillin (phylacteries worn on the head and arm during morning prayers) into Auschwitz. The survivor raged that the man would charge others their daily rations just to wear the tefillin for a few moments each day in fulfillment of their biblical obligation. "How could anyone do that?", the survivor complained, "How could God let that stand?". The rabbis reply was to tell the survivor that he was looking at the episode from the wrong perspective. Sure, the man with the tefillin was taking advantage of his fellow Jews, but, BUT, how many Jews were willing to give up their meager rations for the opportunity to don the tefillin!?

God was there, and many found Him. Many, unfortunately, turned away and came up empty.

Answer 4

He was there. I had visited Auschwitz which has been preserved and left virtually untouched as a reminder of the Holocaust and is open to the public.
In one part of the camp there are these underground corriders where people had to line up to be stuffed into these little windowless rooms where they eventually died. The corridors had clay like walls and on the walls and written in every language, Polish, french, German, Russian, etc., including English were hundreds of thousands of messages scratched onto the surface using thier fingernails, or little pebbles found on the floor.
The messages were various, such as some were patriotic like , Viva la France, and others were just stuff like names of these people, the date of their births and thier last words to their families and loved ones.
As we read these messages, all of us tourists were in tears and I found myself wondering where was God while these people were standing in line knowing that death was at the end of the corridor.
As I continued to read the messages I started to notice something about many of them that I didn't notice before.
There were thousands of Bible verses, like John 3:16 also written in all the languages. There were phrases such as Jesus lives! There were also prayers and hymns written on the walls, and words of love and encouragement to the others that would follow behind them in that corridor to death.
I was utterly amazed, and realized that God was indeed right here in the midst of all this misery, sorrow and pain, comforting and encouraging them, giving peace, love and hope to them in thierr darkest hour before joining with Him in heaven.
The jews were not the only ones sent to death camps. There were a multide of thousands of others, Catholics, baptists, Lutherens, and others as well, anyone who had been considered a threat to the Nazi government.
I was only about 15 at the time that I toured Auschwitz and didn't know much about God or religion but about ten years later I became a born-again Christian.
My family was Polish and many of them died in both concentration and work camps.

Answer 5

You cannot blame God for the sins, however great, of man. Nothing good came out of the Holocaust, but, if it has changed YOUR heart, then it has done something good.

Answer 6

In the beginning God completely sustained His creation without blemish. That’s why it was perfect. He held every atom together in a perfect state. He kept the planets in their orbits. He kept animals from tripping and breaking their necks. He did not allow people to suffer and die.
Deuteronomy 8:4 gives us a little glimpse of how things might have been in the original creation. “Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.” God is omnipotent and perfectly capable of sustaining and protecting his creation.
When Adam sinned, however, the Lord cursed the universe. In essence there was a change and along with that change God seemingly took away a little bit of his sustaining power and allowed things like suffering and death into His creation. Now He permits bad things to happen—and this is a reminder that sin has consequences and that the world needs a Savior. Romans 8:22 says, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”

God took pleasure in all of His creation ("http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=revelation+4:11&version=NKJV"), but He loved people most of all. He allowed the created universe to deteriorate so we would see the consequences of our sin. If we did not see the consequences of our sin, we would never see that we need salvation from our sin, and we would never accept His offer of mercy for our sin. Most people easily recognize that there is a problem in the world. This can be used to show them that there is one who has overcome this problem of death and suffering—Jesus Christ.

Answer 7

In the heart of every single person that suffered and in the heart of every single that fought to stop it. All of what we do, good or bad, is an act of choice. You choose to do and you choose to not do. It's called free will. You believe or don't believe. It was man's choice to conduct the holocaust and we will all be judged by the result of our choices.

Answer 8

The people killed in the holocaust were not Christians they were Jews and Homosexuals. God only protects Christians. The rest Jesus told his followers to slay. Obviously Hitler was doing God's work. If god didn't want the holocaust to happen he would have prevented it.

Answer 9

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

And they planned a plan, and We planned a plan while they perceived not. See, then, how was the end of their plan that We destroyed them and their people, all (of them). So those are their houses fallen down because they were unjust, most surely there is a sign in this for a people who know. And We delivered those who believed and who guarded (against evil).

Answer 10

He was where He always is...but during that He was also not able to break His own rules and MAKE those individuals loose there Free Will which was given to each of us..by God..

Answer 11

He was watching it happen i honestly think that it was meant to be holocaust killed thousands of Jews and Jesus claims to be King of the Jews so I'm sure in some way it must have tied in with God's plans