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Religious Views of the Holocaust
Most people realize that during World War II, the Nazi Party of Germany waged a relentless war against people they did not welcome in their country for one reason or another. We all know that over 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust, but many people don't realize that the Nazis targeted others as well, including Gypsies and some Christians who would not cooperate with the Nazi regime or who were caught aiding those who were supposed to be sent to concentration camps.
Given that the Holocaust was a multicultural and multi-religious event, it is interesting to consider how some major religions might view the events. Christianity teaches that all murder is against the law of God. However most Christian religions allow the execution of criminals by state governments. This is why we have individuals who protest executions but rarely hear entire denominations protest such events. So then, would Christian religions condone the events of the Holocaust because it was an event sponsored by the German government?
The single most horrific act of the Holocaust was the murder of six million people, mainly Jews. The unfortunate fact is that the Vatican and the Pope, as spokesman of the Catholic Church, remained silent and never...
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Although the death of all those people was the single biggest outrage committed by the Nazis in the concentration camps, it wasn't the only one. They also committed other atrocities, including forcing women into prostitution and performing experimental surgery on women. Women were forced into brothels, often for the purpose of servicing the elite of the German Army, the SS troops. While they were sometimes given a choice, the choice was prostitution or death (Dworkin, 1994). Christian religions would not consider these acts of prostitution sins, because the women did not participate as a matter of choice. Islam would take an extremely hard stance against these murders if the victims were Islamic, but even though the victims were largely Jewish, Islam considers itself a just religion and has a long and honored tradition of law and justice. Islam could not support such events. Buddhism is opposed to the taking of all life, including animals, and the Holocaust murders would be seen as the true horror it was.
Theologically, refusing to serve as prostitutes might have been considered suicide, a sin in all Christian religions…
Bibliography
Dworkin, Andrea. 1994. The Unremembered: Searching for Women at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Ms. Magazine, V:3
Rittner, Carol, Smith, Stephen D., and Steinfeldt, Irena, editors.
The Holocaust and the Christian World: Reflections on the Past - Challenges for the Future. 1994. New York: Continuum.
Holocaust is a catastrophe orchestrated by Nazi Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. It was an organized and systematic murder with the outcome being the brutal killing of approximately six million innocent Jews during the Word War II (Longerich 2007 p. 29). State involvement in the murder complicates the whole affair as it was contrary to expectations. This was in deep contrast by all standards given the reality among
For example, the essentially female nature of the author's suffering is embodied in her tale of Karola, a woman who cleverly hides the age of her daughter, so she will allow the child to be admitted through the gates of Auschwitz by her side. Sara Nomberg-Przytyk implies that a woman will have a special reason, as a mother, to be clever and devious in avoiding the horrors of the
Holocaust The name "Holocaust" has its root in a Greek word that means burnt whole or totally consumed by fire. Between 1939 and 1945, approximately six million Jews and five million non-Jews died in the Holocaust as Adolph Hitler sought to create a "perfect nation." All of these deaths were premeditated mass executions. In September 1939, Hitler started World War II with a rapid air and land attack on an unprepared Poland.
This may also account for Eliezer's interpretation of Moshe's account of the slaughter at the hands of the Gestapo: he feels that the man must be lying -- he also believes that the rest of his town rejects his story as well. However, it is quite likely that many of the older citizens fearfully believe Moshe, but do not want to publicly acknowledge it. Nonetheless, from Eliezer's young point-of-view,
Holocaust Many historians and scholars contend that the Holocaust -- the mass slaughter of an estimated 6 million Jews, gypsies and others carried out by the Nazis in WWII -- was the worst example of genocide in human history. Others suggest the killing of Native Americans by European settlers (and the U.S. government) was genocide as well. On the subject of genocide, there is strong evidence that genocide is being carried
That was not the case for the five videos selected to review for this paper. The overarching theme of each interview was the warmth and love of the Jewish families and their community. They were close-knit and cared deeply for one another. It would be simplistic to say their love saved them. It would also be unfair to the millions of Jews who did perish in the Holocaust, as it