Maria asks…
What did the rest of the world do during the holocaust?
We’re writing essays about this and, well, I need some help. I would prefer if you could link me to something explaining what the rest of the world was doing about this, why it took so long to notice it, and what could have been done differently. I need links since we need to write sources, but some personal knowledge will help too.
Thanks.
weight loss cardiff answers:
In dealing with the problem of evil in the world, we run into many problems like this one. Could God have prevented the Holocaust? Yes, He could have. He could also have prevented Stalin’s massacres in the U.S.S.R., the Spanish Inquisition’s torture of dissidents, and Nero’s reign of terror. In each case, God allowed evil men to exercise a certain amount of power for a short period of time.
Ultimately, we do not know the reasons for what God allows. His ways and thoughts are infinitely higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). His sovereign plan takes in the whole scope of history, past, present, and future, encompassing every possible course of action, every cause and effect, every potentiality, and every contingency. There is no way we could possibly fathom the intricacies of His design. By faith, we trust that His plan is the best plan possible for restoring fallen humanity and a cursed world to righteousness and blessing.
But we can understand this: God’s permission is not the same as His approval. God permitted Adam to eat of the forbidden tree, but He did not approve of the action. In the same way, God’s allowing the Holocaust in no way suggests His approval of it. God is grieved by the sinfulness of man and the hardness of his heart (Genesis 6:6; Mark 3:5).
We also know that God has done everything possible to redeem us from the sin which would destroy us. He gave His only Son, who sacrificed His life for our sin and took our penalty. All who turn to Jesus Christ in faith are saved. The sin in this world, and horrors such as the Holocaust, are a direct result of mankind’s continued rebellion against God.
While nothing can justify the Holocaust, we do see at least one good thing which came from World War II: Israel now exists as a nation. The Holocaust was a primary reason the White Paper of 1939 was rescinded, freeing Jews to immigrate to Palestine. The fact that, as of 1948, the Jews have a restored national identity helps to fulfill such biblical prophecies as Ezekiel 37 and Matthew 24. Defeating Nazism and giving the land of Israel back to the Jews is a classic example of God’s thwarting Satan’s plan and bringing about good in spite of the evil.
In all of His doings, God is just (Psalm 145:17). The blame for the Holocaust lies squarely on the shoulders of sinful humanity. The Holocaust was the product of sinful choices made by sinful men in rebellion against a holy God. If the Holocaust proves anything, it is the utter depravity of man. Just fourteen years after “the war to end all wars” (World War I), Hitler rose to power. What is even more shocking is that millions followed him, enabling his horrific policies and pursuing a path to national destruction.
And while Nazism took hold in Germany, where were the European churches? Some, it is true, stood fast against the evil in their midst, and some churchmen, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid the ultimate price for dissenting. But they were the minority. Most churches of the era acquiesced to Nazi Party rules and remained silent while the Jews were slaughtered. Where were the world leaders? Other than England’s Winston Churchill, the world’s politicos took the route of isolation or appeasement. Neither worked. Where were the good, decent people? Edmund Burke is often quoted as saying, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.” Although there were a few Germans and other Europeans such as Oscar Schindler and Corrie ten Boom and her family, who risked their lives to save thousands of Jews from annihilation, most remained silent and the Holocaust ensued. The question is not so much “Why did God allow the Holocaust?” but “Why did we?”
God gives mankind freedom of choice. We can choose to follow Him and take a stand for righteousness, or we can rebel against Him and pursue evil. The problem resides in the heart of man. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Until man’s heart turns to God, the world will continue to witness “ethnic cleansings,” genocides, and atrocities such as the Holocaust.
Http://www.gotquestions.org/God-allow-Holocaust.html
Steven asks…
How did the Nazis and Germans attempt to eliminate an entire group of people?
Other than the obvious (of concentration camps) how did they (Germans and Nazis) attempt to rid the world of certain peoples.
weight loss cardiff answers:
Propaganda…..have the populace not react to exterminations, jews were portrayed as parasites…e.g. Fungus, rats….a blight on humanity to be exterminated.
Dehumanization…..the were not human beings, but a sub spices to be eradicated.
The Milgram experiment in psychology has two dangerous proposals, that if the conditions are right and a person has no strong existential convictions it is vary easy to have someone harm another individual. Physical distance one, it is easier to harm an individual the greater the distance. E.G….that’s the reason for gas chambers. SS troops were having nervous brake downs killing civilians by burning them to death alive, or machine gunning them in pits. It was easier and more efficient to heard them into killing factories such as camp Dora, take the people but them into a gas chamber and have the SS officer turn a valve in another room, clean killing the SS officer never saw the face of his victims. Prisoners would haul the bodies out, the SS never soiled their hands in clean up of their murders, they just instigated and over saw to it. The last point to Milgram was that if a authoritarian person gives an order and takes full responsibility for it, it is easier to illicit someone to do the job for you, even in causing bodily harm. Police brutality, or a sadistic doctor, because these people are in high authority and high esteem it takes along time to build up a case because of these factors. Well, the SS did not start off as thugs, they were highly educated men, good citizens in their communities, so the authority they had, even to its murderous perverseness had power. The men following SS orders felt that the responsibility fell on the officers not the individual caring out the order, because of trust in that authority. There was another psychology experiment on peer pressure affecting judgment. 99 people were in on the experiment stating that a short line was long, the odd man out would state that the short line was long, and after the experiment would state he was right. So peer pressure can affect an individuals judgment to act wrongly, but the individual still believes they are acting right. Mild brain washing still happens today……military training, in a time of war a officer gives the order to fire (think about it……you are pulling a trigger on a human being taking their life), the soldier needs to be conditioned to the task. I am pro military, pro democracy God bless canada and america, was raised on moms apple pie, the love of queen and country, and watching G.I. Joe cartoons on saturday. But if one dose not have the strictest faith in God, and related morality, if the conditions are right, anyone can go to base instincts of pack mentality and kill without question. There were some men, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that resisted the nazis, a theologian and a spy that paid for his beliefs with his life in a concentration camp 3 weeks before the wars end.
Michael asks…
How was the church a threat to the Nazis?
In what ways could the church be seen as a threat to the Nazis?
What opposition did some people in the Church give the Nazi’s and why?
weight loss cardiff answers:
The Christian churches under thoughtful leadership of such theologians as Dietrich Bonhoeffer posed such a threat to the Nazis they had to push them underground. Read about the ‘Confessing Church’.
When others would suggest the churches ‘cooperated’ they neglect the pressure put on the congregations by the Nazis. Churches were forced to remove all ‘religious’ trappings and replace them with those of the state.
One reliable source from inside Hitler’s own group of cronies not only supports this but is among the first to explain it to the outside world.
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