What Does It Say About God?

Dasha Ritterberg, a survivor of undoubtedly one of the most horrific and tragic events in history, the Holocaust, has the ultimate right to question God. Dasha Ritterberg and every single person of the Jewish faith that stands next to her as a Holocaust survivor, have the utmost right to ask why they had to endure such evil from another human being, and why God didn't help them in such a needed time. Ritterberg wonders if these people that so strategically planned and killed so many Jewish people were created in the image of God and then asks in reference to the ghetto life, the hunger and poverty and the beatings, the hangings, the shootings and the burnings of millions of Jews by the Nazi Germans "What does it say about God?" This question is a very complex one. Every survivor will have a different opinion and answer. Some feel as though it must have happened for a reason, some are angry with Him, some questioned Him, some stopped believing in him while some felt that he was absent during the Holocaust and some may feel like there's no God at all.

First we should look at Evil, which Dasha Ritterberg makes several references to. What is it? Where does it come from? How does one become driven by such evil? Evil, by definition means bad, sinful, wicked, wrong and immoral. It is the opposite of good. In the question of where does it come from, there are many different answers. Some will say that God is at fault, and some will disagree. Geoffrey Scarre, who wrote After Evil, takes a more philosophical approach and says "evils are produced by agents who know that they are doing wrong and do it willingly" (4). Evil is not always from satisfaction of being harmful to others, but due to a difference of interests. Scarre explains that this is due to the power of principle, especially moral or religious principles, and that this is what drives people to extreme behavior.

Scarre states that when we reflect on the Holocaust that "we feel it to be deeply inadequate to describe that catastrophe as wrong, or even very wrong; or bad, or even very bad. What we require is some more powerful term of condemnation, which we find in the world evil" (7). While many will disagree with Scarre's statement, myself included, I understand that he is taking a more philosophical approach to what evil is. However, I do believe he makes a good point when he responds to people expecting that the Nazis should have known better and that they should have done things differently than they did. He states, "The Germans did think; but they thought the wrong thoughts and swallowed the wrong theories" (Scarre 174). On the opposing side, when looking at religion, most of the Jewish Holocaust survivors will agree with John M. Oesterreicher. He states, "God created the world, thus bearing ultimate responsibility for the evil in it" and that evil is "not only is it the root of all Jewish suffering, it