My Holocaust Epiphanies
As Rosh Hashanah draws near I find myself reflecting today on the Holocaust. There is, of course, a lot about the Holocaust to reflect on. I’d like to relate two Holocaust epiphanies that I’ve had:
First, a bit of background information on me: I am not an historian. I am a scientist by training, and by temperament. During my school years I would say that I was generally indifferent to the subject of history, and this might explain my naïveté regarding the holocaust.
My first revelation came perhaps 20 years ago while watching the very touching movie “Life Is Beautiful”. Prior to seeing this movie I was unaware that the Nazis sent CHILDREN to the concentration camps! CHILDREN! And that they then put many to death! Never in my life would I have thought that was possible! WHO on God’s earth could have the cold hearted callousness to kill a child? What kind of monsters are capable of this? I still haven’t gotten over the shock of this realization.
My second revelation came about 10 years ago when I visited the Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, in Israel. There I learned something that astonished me then and STILL does today: I learned that the majority of the Jewish victims murdered by the Germans were NOT even German! The Germans, apparently, IMPORTED them (from other countries in Europe and North Africa) in order to enslave and kill them! How on earth could this possibly be? Just for a minute, ignore the moral and ethical aspects of this, and think merely of the tremendous EFFORT they expended in order to kill people! Think of the logistics of transporting MILLIONS of people to their death! Think of the work required to execute them all! Then think of the practical difficulties in disposing of MILLIONS of bodies? This dark episode is beyond human understanding.
For me, these two epiphanies taken together, tell me ONE thing: The dimensions of human hatred knows NO BOUNDS. The capacity for human hatred is INFINITE.
May God help us.