How Did Jewish Faith Come After The Holocaust?

Over the years, Jewish faith has started to be lost because of the hardships faced in the holocaust. The thought of there being a god that protects them slowly diminished due to the fact they had to face all of these tortures. Many still believe in the “almighty god” that is supposed to protect you while others gave up in the “supposed god” that protects you from all of the evils of the world and give good things to those that have done nothing wrong and followed him wholeheartedly. Also, the generations to come after the holocaust would have their ideology influenced by the previous generations because of their loss in faith. Faith is what someone believes in, regardless in actually knowing in what people are putting faith into. For example, …show more content…
Arthur Cohen stated, “Simply defined (and the simpler the better for our purposes), the death camps were constructed to fulfi1l one purpose: to kill the greatest number of Jews at the least possible cost in money and material” (Cohen, “Holocaust reflections”). This shows that the death camps were an actual death sentence to any Jew that would step inside of the concentration camps. What Arthur Cohen proves is the living conditions in the concentration camps which will go into more depth later. This shows the Jewish people’s way of thinking when forced into the concentration camps and after when they finally are able to get out. Arthur Cohen at one point wanted to change his beliefs from being a Jewish person he would want to become a Christian. His idea of the death camps shows that even Jews that may have not been involved in the holocaust shows that it had big after effects on the Jews and making them doubt their beliefs. Another similar way of thinking to Arthur Cohen is Emil L. Fackenheim which says, “The Auschwitz praxis was based on a new principle: for one portion of mankind, existence itself is a crime, punishable by humiliation, torture, and death. And the new world produced by this praxis included two kinds of inhabitants, those who were given the "punishment" and those who administered it” (Fackenheim, “Holocaust Reflections”). This shows the torture that the Jews …show more content…
The hard labor they were forced to endure for about 7 years may have influenced their loss of faith in their god. The labor they had to endure would usually involve carrying extremely heavy things with a small amount of food and under brutal conditions. With the labor that they were forced into doing there was no proper equipment, clothing was more like rags the Nazis put together, and a huge lack of rest. Due to these conditions the Jewish people must have thought that the god must have been punishing them for whatever they have done and to test their faith but in the end they must have thought that god was not with them and completely gave up on their beliefs as a Jewish person. As stated before the meals given were those that would be given to a small animal that would be kept at home. For example a gerbil would have about the same amount of food as a Jewish person in the labor camps. This degrading way of treating the Jewish people had led to them thinking of a life that they are the minority and no one cares about them, not even the god they so truly loved and praised wasn’t helping them in the current situation that they were in. After the holocaust most of the holocaust survivors wouldn’t believe that a god would make them suffer for something that they believe they did nothing wrong. Being forced into experiments by being the Nazi’s test