The Theology of The Holocaust

[johnsmithjohnsmith]

How do you think about the Holocaust, theologically?
There's an interesting article here, about the Holocaust.
I find it almost to think about from a theological standpoint. How about you?

 

[johnsmithjohnsmith]

How do you think about the Holocaust, theologically?
There's an interesting article here, about the Holocaust.
I find it almost to think about from a theological standpoint. How about you?

 

[metis]

I was sponsored on a study of the Holocaust in Poland and Israel back in 1991, and it is very disturbing theologically, needless to say. One of my close friends survived it but it left its toll on him, thus leading him away from Judaism or any other religion. There are ways around this, but I have to go for now.

 

[dfnj]

Many people have suggested the Jews were not targeted for extermination as much as they were all being used for slave labor. Just as many non-Jews died from being in slave labor camps. And people have suggested the there is evidence to suggest the gas chambers were just being used for delousing. Most people died of starvation not gassing it has been suggested.

But any talk that is counter to the official history is instantly labeled as anti-Semitic. It doesn't really matter how the people died it's just as bad.

 

[dfnj]

How do you think about the Holocaust, theologically?
There's an interesting article here, about the Holocaust.
I find it almost to think about from a theological standpoint. How about you?

I think this is an interesting quote from the article, "To me, this is proof that God does not exist, as if he did, he would not have allowed the Holocaust to happen."

I think the idea of blaming God somehow for not doing something about the Holocaust is not a correct view. God did not create us as perfect beings. Human beings are full of imperfections. These imperfections cause people to commit very bad acts of evil. I think we can agree, based on human experiments, there is no amount of evil God will not tolerate in order to preserve our free-will. But regardless of how you feel about God, whether or not God stops unnecessary evil, a creator God created us with imperfections.

Now you could blame God for creating these imperfections in the first place. But this is like blaming your parents for you not making the High School baseball team. I once heard a comedian say you are not like your parents, you ARE your parents. Meaning we have all our parents strengths and weaknesses. Many children can't get past the hatred they have for their own parents because their parent's weaknesses are their own weaknesses. You only criticize and hate in other people what you do not like about your own character. For many people, there comes a point in the psychological development where they look past their parent's weaknesses and express their love for the parents regardless of their parent's flaws.

I think the same thing is true with God. Some people just cannot accept their own imperfections or the imperfections of humanity. Maybe the point and purpose of our existence is to come to terms with our own imperfections and continue to have faith and love for God regardless of what is happening or has happened in the World. It takes a certain amount of maturity to see the World as being "perfect" just the way it is. Many people hate God and hate the Universe but what they actually are doing is hating their own imperfections and weaknesses as they see them projected on the World or on history.

I would assume if you have strong faith in God you can take solace in the idea that everyone who suffered and died in the Holocaust is at least experiencing eternally heavenly bliss as they exist in the presence of God's infinite beauty.

 

[Nakosis]

Many people have suggested the Jews were not targeted for extermination as much as they were all being used for slave labor. Just as many non-Jews died from being in slave labor camps. And people have suggested the there is evidence to suggest the gas chambers were just being used for delousing. Most people died of starvation not gassing it has been suggested.

But any talk that is counter to the official history is instantly labeled as anti-Semitic. It doesn't really matter how the people died it's just as bad.

I suspect any connection between the Jews in Germany and biblical scripture was just propaganda created by the National Socialist Party to justify a moral indignation towards a group of people.

 

[Flankerl]

Many people have suggested the Jews were not targeted for extermination as much as they were all being used for slave labor. Just as many non-Jews died from being in slave labor camps. And people have suggested the there is evidence to suggest the gas chambers were just being used for delousing. Most people died of starvation not gassing it has been suggested.

But any talk that is counter to the official history is instantly labeled as anti-Semitic. It doesn't really matter how the people died it's just as bad.

Oh no you poor thing. Are you being supressed by the Joos?

Many people have suggested the Jews were not targeted for extermination as much as they were all being used for slave labor.

But since you actually wrote this, please tell me why were my younger great uncles and aunts murdered upon arrival?
I've always wanted to know the reason and now you are here to enlighten me. I am so excited.

 

[metis]

Many people have suggested the Jews were not targeted for extermination as much as they were all being used for slave labor. Just as many non-Jews died from being in slave labor camps.

Maybe google the "Final Solution" and see what you find. BTW, that was the NAZI's words for it, not any of us later on.

 

[metis]

I suspect any connection between the Jews in Germany and biblical scripture was just propaganda created by the National Socialist Party to justify a moral indignation towards a group of people.

Actually their propaganda had little reference to theology but was much more to the issue of "race". Look at copies of "Der Sturmer" for examples.

 

[Nakosis]

Actually their propaganda had little reference to theology but was much more to the issue of "race". Look at copies of "Der Sturmer" for examples.

I found this...

The Jew – who, as everyone knows, has a God all to himself – in ordinary life strikes us primarily by his outward appearance, which, no matter to what European nationality we belong, has something disagreeably foreign to that nationality. Instinctively we wish to have nothing in common with a man who looks like that.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/09/german-antisemitism-holocaust-second-world-war

Also was surprised at how long German antisemitism had been going on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany

 

[dfnj]

Maybe google the "Final Solution" and see what you find. BTW, that was the NAZI's words for it, not any of us later on.

I'm not suggesting it. I am just relaying what the deniers are saying. The question is were they work camps or death camps might be hard to answer. But as I said in my post, what difference does it make if people die.

 

[dfnj]

Oh no you poor thing. Are you being supressed by the Joos?
But since you actually wrote this, please tell me why were my younger great uncles and aunts murdered upon arrival?
I've always wanted to know the reason and now you are here to enlighten me. I am so excited.

Sorry, I wasn't there. Have you ever read anything the deniers write? They claim the evidence does not support the official story. I have no idea what is true. But as I said in my original post, what difference does it make if its a work camp or a death camp if people die either way. Are you denier the Germans used slave labor and many people died of starvation? Do you even know what it's like too be hungry!

 

[David T]

Many people have suggested the Jews were not targeted for extermination as much as they were all being used for slave labor. Just as many non-Jews died from being in slave labor camps. And people have suggested the there is evidence to suggest the gas chambers were just being used for delousing. Most people died of starvation not gassing it has been suggested.

But any talk that is counter to the official history is instantly labeled as anti-Semitic. It doesn't really matter how the people died it's just as bad.

I think that bias plays a roll sometimes.. Now if anyone can come forward and isn't a neo nazi with some alternative view people might listen. Maybe but what the heck probably not.

 

[Shaul]

How do you think about the Holocaust, theologically?
There's an interesting article here, about the Holocaust.
I find it almost to think about from a theological standpoint. How about you?

This is your first post? A mocking of the victims of the Holocaust and G-d at the same time? Sort of a like a demonic twofer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial

 

[metis]

The question is were they work camps or death camps might be hard to answer.

I went to both when I was there, and there's no doubt which was which. However, near the end of the war, many other camps in essence became death camps as the Germans tried to wipe as many "undesirables" off the map as possible, and Hitler even sent out a message through a broadcast on his last day alive telling other nations to continue this process.

 

[Flankerl]

The question is were they work camps or death camps might be hard to answer

Not really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp

The Nazis distinguished between extermination and concentration camps, although the terms extermination camp (Vernichtungslager) and death camp (Todeslager) were interchangeable, each referring to camps whose primary function was genocide. Todeslagers were designed specifically for the systematic killing of people delivered en masse by the Holocaust trains. The executioners did not expect the prisoners to survive more than a few hours beyond arrival at Belzec, Sobibór, and Treblinka.[25] The Reinhard extermination camps were under Globocnik's direct command; each of them was run by 20 to 35 men from the SS-Totenkopfverbände branch of the Schutzstaffel, augmented by about one hundred Trawnikis – auxiliaries mostly from Soviet Ukraine, and up to one thousand Sonderkommando slave labourers each.[26] The Jewish men, women and children were delivered from the ghettos for "special treatment" in an atmosphere of terror by uniformed police battalions from both, Orpo and Schupo.[27]

Death camps differed from concentration camps located in Germany proper, such as Bergen-Belsen, Oranienburg, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen, which were prison camps set up prior to World War II for people defined as 'undesirable'. From March 1936, all Nazi concentration camps were managed by the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the Skull Units, SS-TV), who operated extermination camps from 1941 as well.[28] An SS anatomist, Dr. Johann Kremer, after witnessing the gassing of victims at Birkenau, wrote in his diary on 2 September 1942: "Dante's Inferno seems to me almost a comedy compared to this. They don't call Auschwitz the camp of annihilation for nothing!"[29] The distinction was evident during the Nuremberg trials, when Dieter Wisliceny (a deputy to Adolf Eichmann) was asked to name the extermination camps, and he identified Auschwitz and Majdanek as such. Then, when asked, "How do you classify the camps Mauthausen, Dachau, and Buchenwald?", he replied, "They were normal concentration camps, from the point of view of the department of Eichmann."[30]
Irrespective of round-ups for extermination camps, the Nazis abducted millions of foreigners for slave labour in other types of camps,[31] which provided perfect cover for the extermination programme.[32] Prisoners represented about a quarter of the total workforce of the Reich, with mortality rates exceeding 75 percent due to starvation, disease, exhaustion, executions, and physical brutality.[31]

Sorry, I wasn't there. Have you ever read anything the deniers write? They claim the evidence does not support the official story. I have no idea what is true.

Doubt besets me.

Are you denier the Germans used slave labor and many people died of starvation? Do you even know what it's like too be hungry!

What are you even trying to do in this thread?