 Many today ask "Why study the Shoah?" The most common response that I have heard is
"This event happened over 50 years ago, it's time to move on." Many consider it a tragic event, even one of
the world's most horrible historical happenings, but as we move away from the event, it is seen as the property
only of historians. Nothing could be further from the truth. One may as well ask, "Why study any historical event" and
the answers to that question have had volumes written in response.
But the Shoah was a very distinct point in history, theology and the story of humankind. It was a time in history
when all sense of right and wrong was destroyed, morality took second place to survival and God was questioned for
his goodness and sovereignty more that at any other time. Moreover, the Shoah cuts to the root of who we are, what we
believe, and what we are capable of doing to each other, what we are capable of believing, and of a fundamental ontology
of why we are here...at all...of what our most essential meaning is.
To not study Shoah would be the far greater bewilderment. How could we not study and try to understand the point in our
history in which both victim and persecutor became less than human, or when the depths and heights of human nobility and
the presence of God were understood or misunderstood. How could we not ask? We will continue this discussion with an
upcoming outline of the essential reasons for studying the holocaust.
The Importance of Studying the Holocaust, or Shoah
The Shoah was the most singular Genocide of the Earth's history,. The War itself, involved every living soul, touched every family either through, loss, war dead,
incarceration, or societal decay and stress. It is estimated over 65 million deaths were associated world wide with the deaths, either through war-related deaths both civilian or military, or directly related to the genocide of the Jews, the Roma& Sinti,
the developmentally delayed,euthanized mental 'patients', political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, intellectuals and artists, and close to 2 million children. This of course does not include the subsequent related deaths: many 'holocaust survivors' carried trauma and depression, infirmity and disease with them into the next 50 years, many committed suicide, many children of survivors suffered from the intense
experiences to difficult to communicate: on the other side of the world, following Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the initial death toll was shadowed by those that died of radiation-related illnesses and cancers for years to come. In short, the "Gale that
Blew Every Shore" did exactly that. It is impossible and psychotic to ignore the greatest wounding we humans have ever delivered upon ourselves, beginning with the
timeless Azazel of the Jews.
The most serious questions of theology were inescapable in the Shoah as every question about God's goodness,
faithfulness, sovereignty and trust were brought into the human heart and conversation even among the most
faithful of every faith. Elie Wiesel writes a trying drama, in which God is put on trial. God is held to his Word,
and the Great Silence is put to the test. All of theology and belief is tried in the Shoah, and the force of doctrine
is brought into effect. Parallel to this, is the behavior or absence of behavior and benevolence of the Church: while some
helped and laid down their very lives and positions, others, most others were either apathetic, afraid, or even eminently
Anti-Semitic, believing with furvor in the plans for the Judenrein of Germany and Europe. The very complex picture of
the Church in the Shoah and of Belief in general in the Shoah must be studied and understood, with critical implications
for the way we live today and face increasing genocides in the House of God.
The Shoah showed the fabric of how persons degenerate and lose moral sense, and so requires study. While processes of
depersonalization which occurred among victims are forefront, there were very sober processes at work which caused normal
20th Century German citizens to learn to hate and harm so completely that conscience was erased. Concepts such as Befehlnotstand,
or "blind obedience" became so pronounced and led to such unspeakable cruelties, that their dynamics have been studied ever
since. [Milgram & Zimbardo Studies] While war time ethics and morality have been written of extensively, the Shoah saw the deliberate
training of a conscience-less, obedient and ruthless armed forces which would stop at nothing to achieve their goal of genocide.
and the conquest of Europe.
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