Why were the Holocaust victims made to suffer so much?

[Sarcelle]

It’s not a German thing, I’m a half-German/half-Italian Jew and Kaninchen is German for ‘rabbit’, which is what my ‘German’ grandfather called me when I was little.

The message of the Shoah isn’t just about Jews, it isn’t really now about Germans.

It’s about how the most civilised country in the world went mad and how its efficiency, it’s organisational powers, were harnessed to mayhem.

It’s about efficient, organised inhumanity. It’s how nice, middle class, civilised people, just like us and everybody else stood back and let evil happen.

That’s what made the Shoah unforgettable. It wasn’t barbarians ‘over there’, it was ‘us’.

Indeed.

It is about the banality of evil.

 

[mikekle]

We execrate Hitler and his henchmen who were hanged in Nuremberg, but the only difference between them and common murderers is that they got the resources of a whole country behind them. The base evil can be found in everybody’s psyche.

ICXC NIKA

That is very true, if things had not be in such perfect alignment in Germany at the time as they were, Hitler would be no different than any of the other millions of evil hateful people out there.

Plus history is full of similar evil men and Im sure there will be more to come in the future, but only when they wield extreme power of authority can they really inflict terrible things upon the people.

 

[Peccavi]

It happened because the Nazis were pure evil and had largely rejected Christianity It had nothing to do with God. When you make the choice to sin, it is not the fault of God. It is your fault.

When did I say it was the fault of God ???
I said it was the fault of men and women who turned deaf to the words of Jesus and in Germany that included many Catholics who served in the SS and Police Battalions which carried out the slaughter not only of Jews and gypsies and homosexuals, but also of fellow Catholics including religious particularly in Poland.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The Nazi’s killed the Jews as fast as they could.

But first the Nazi’s wanted to extract as much as they could. So some were set aside to work as slave laborers.

So there was a sorting process.

Others were directly routed to the gas chambers.

There were reports from the Soviet Union, that when they killed Polish Catholic prisoners, that doing the killing with guns was very hard work … their guns overheated and the executioners burned their hands from the guns overheating.

The Nazi’s knew that using guns was inefficient, so they invented concentration camps to put all the Jews into places where they could be efficiently murdered.

The Nazi’s murdered many many very smart people. Probably if Hitler had put those smart people to work instead of killing them, he would have won World War Two. Certainly, he would have had the atomic bomb before the United States.

Certainly, Hitler would have successfully destroyed Russia. He came very close to capturing Moscow as it was.

When General Dwight Eisenhower found the concentration camps and the gas chambers and the cremation furnaces, he ordered photographers to record everything and he insisted that all the local people be taken to the camps to witness everything. He said that someday some people would attempt to deny what had taken place and he was determined to make sure that the facts would be recorded.

Germany was so advanced, even as it was, that they operated an airline that flew non-stop to Japan! AND, they flew at least one plane from Germany to the USA and returned without stopping or refueling.

Japan had the I-400 class submarines that were about the same size as our Polaris missile submarines. And they may have detonated a test atomic bomb off the coast of Wonson, Korea.

I don’t even want to speculate.

 

[gracepoole]

If Hitler’s goal was the extermination of Jews and some Christians, why not put them into the gas chambers instantly? Much easier than starvation and having to guard them. It seems to be so sadistic to torture them, and it had to reduce the morale of those in charge.

My answer is that God allowed them to do their Purgatory here in this world and tested their Love for God and perhaps even tested their love for their enemies and for God.

.“And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
–Deuteronomy 6:5

I feel sorry for those that rejected God and became Atheists.

First, I don’t believe God “allowed” the victims to “do their purgatory here in this world and tested their love for God.” And no one else should believe this either. God didn’t create the Holocaust. Many Jews reject the term “Holocaust” and instead use “Shoah” to describe the genocide because “holocaust” refers to a sacrificial death. The Jews were not sacrificed. They were murdered by fellow human beings. Certainly God may see fit to reward these souls for their suffering – but He didn’t cause this suffering.

Second, as others have noted, think practically about the challenges of killing millions of people. Getting the victims to the gas chambers posed problems re: rail travel. The crematoria often broke down, necessitating burning pits which were incredibly inefficient. Victim labor was needed to construct and destroy killing centers. And it was also needed for the war effort. The Nazis were nothing if not industrious. Using victim labor until victims were worked to death simply made sense in terms of their larger goals.

 

[Robert_Sock]

First, I don’t believe God “allowed” the victims to “do their purgatory here in this world and tested their love for God.” And no one else should believe this either. God didn’t create the Holocaust. Many Jews reject the term “Holocaust” and instead use “Shoah” to describe the genocide because “holocaust” refers to a sacrificial death. The Jews were not sacrificed. They were murdered by fellow human beings. Certainly God may see fit to reward these souls for their suffering – but He didn’t cause this suffering.

Second, as others have noted, think practically about the challenges of killing millions of people. Getting the victims to the gas chambers posed problems re: rail travel. The crematoria often broke down, necessitating burning pits which were incredibly inefficient. Victim labor was needed to construct and destroy killing centers. And it was also needed for the war effort. The Nazis were nothing if not industrious. Using victim labor until victims were worked to death simply made sense in terms of their larger goals.

Do you believe that God could have intervened? If so, why didn’t He? He certainly did in the OT, such as the exodus.

 

[gracepoole]

Do you believe that God could have intervened? If so, why didn’t He? He certainly did in the OT, such as the exodus.

Of course He could have intervened. And none of us can begin to guess why He didn’t. Intervention, of course, is different than initiation. Even if God had intervened, this would not be a sign that He initiated and created the Holocaust.

You might find the film God on Trial of interest.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Of course He could have intervened. And none of us can begin to guess why He didn’t. Intervention, of course, is different than initiation. Even if God had intervened, this would not be a sign that He initiated and created the Holocaust.

You might find the film God on Trial of interest.

Do you agree that in the OT God literally punished the Israelites, such as when they disobeyed Him during the exodox?

chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/404608/jewish/Was-the-Holocaust-a-Punishment.htm

You may be interested in the above article, which made me post this in the first place. Judging from the comments, a lot of Jews disagree on the Holocaust.

 

[gracepoole]

Do you agree that in the OT God literally punished the Israelites, such as when they disobeyed Him during the exodox?

You realize you’re heading down a path in which you’ll invariably claim that the Holocaust was God’s punishment for the Jews, right?

 

[gracepoole]

Do you agree that in the OT God literally punished the Israelites, such as when they disobeyed Him during the exodox?

chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/404608/jewish/Was-the-Holocaust-a-Punishment.htm

You may be interested in the above article, which made me post this in the first place. Judging from the comments, a lot of Jews disagree on the Holocaust.

From the source you added:

But to stand up and pronounce judgment on someone else—and especially to say that I know G‑d’s will and G‑d’s mind, and I know that this happened because of this, or that if you people continue this way such-and-such will, G‑d forbid, befall you—that’s something only a prophet can do.

And:

Concerning.the Holocaust, I know that here too there are those who would read this as, G‑d forbid, a punishment. But the Rebbe regarded that an intolerable affront not only to the Jewish people, but to their G‑d. As the Rebbe once put it, “It is impossible that the Holocaust was a punishment for sins. Even the Accusing Angel himself could never find sufficient sins in that generation to justify the extermination of six million holy martyrs with such unspeakable cruelty.”

 

[Robert_Sock]

You realize you’re heading down a path in which you’ll invariably claim that the Holocaust was God’s punishment for the Jews, right?

No, if you read my first post, I believe many of these Jews did their Purgatory here in this world, but we cannot deny that God had a tendency to punish the Israelites in the OT. These too though, may have done their Purgatory here in this world. I hold the Jews in high esteem, and in a hundred years from now, things will start to make sense. I believe God has something good in store for them!

 

[gracepoole]

we cannot deny that God had a tendency to punish the Israelites in the OT.

What point does this prove for you in relation to the Holocaust?

 

[Robert_Sock]

What point does this prove for you in relation to the Holocaust?

That they were martyrs, and that God has a special plan for them!

I still do not understand all the suffering they were made to endure.

 

[mikekle]

That they were martyrs, and that God has a special plan for them!

I still do not understand all the suffering they were made to endure.

I totally agree, I dont think anyone can say it made them stronger, in fact, it likely had the opposite effect.

In my opinion, this was an event where God should have stepped in directly, not by using mankind or anything like that, he should have opened the skies and sent down legions of warrior angels to those concentration camps, or at least struck the nazis with a plague, that would only have killed them.

And today, instead of watching video and pictures of the allies storming the camps, we would have been able to watch video PROOF of God intervening in a supernatural manner, think of how many people that would have turned to Christianity!!!

Although from what Ive seen, God does not like to make himself known too much in the modern world, its like he prefers to stay mysterious and hidden, when prayers are answered, 99.9% of the time, it is accomplished by using mans actions.