Or to put it another way, the question isn’t where was G-d, but where was man.
It was man that perpetrated the Holocaust - the segregation, persecution and dehumanisation of Jews. Ordinary people were scapegoated by other supposedly ordinary people, they were treated as unequal, and were seen as vermin that needed to be destroyed.
People stood by as their Jewish neighbours were rounded up because of the words of hatred that they had heard for years. It was man who forced Jews into ghettos, concentration and death camps and shot Jews in their thousands in forests and ravines.
Man perpetrated the Holocaust and inspired others to do things previously thought to be beyond human capability.
Antisemitism ran deep. Holocaust survivor Josef Perl had just been liberated and was still wearing the striped uniform of Buchenwald as he tried to find his family. He made it past the border patrols to his family home in Czechoslovakia.
He said “I knew that my mother and sisters were killed, but I couldn’t believe my father was dead.”
As he neared his childhood home, he spotted one of his father’s former farm workers. “He greeted me with a shotgun and said: “If you don’t leave, I will kill you.’” This was man during and after the Holocaust.
But yet, it was also man who stood up against this tyranny – through resistance and rescue. Jews and non-Jews together stood up against the Nazis and their collaborators. Resistance was physical, spiritual, and emotional.
In the forests of Europe, a group of Jewish partisans did everything in their power to thwart the Nazi assault. Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg BEM shares his memories of having his barmitzvah in the Riga Ghetto.
Survivors marked Jewish holidays and festivals in concentration camps, and prayed, even as the Nazis tried to stamp out their entire religion.
And whilst some non-Jews turned in their neighbours to the Nazis, some risked it all in order to save Jews from their near-certain fate. They hid Jews in forests, attics and under floorboards.
Some provided Jews with false papers, work permits and helped Jews escape over borders. Many have been recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for their heroism.
And millions just stood by. They kept their heads down and hoped that by not actively participating, they were doing the right thing. The reality is that if those bystanders had acted differently, we would be telling a very different story today. The Holocaust relied on them and their silence.
And of course, man was the victim. It is hard to imagine how humans endured what they did – as Primo Levi implores of us:
"consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud,
Who does not know peace,
Who fights for a scrap of bread,
Who dies because of a yes or a no."
But it was man; identified, segregated, imprisoned, humiliated, starved, beaten, tortured, and eventually murdered in ravines and forests and in purpose built factories of death. Simply for being Jewish.
Man showed its humanity, as well as its indifference to inhumanity during the Holocaust. It showed us what can happen when hatred, racism and prejudice takes over a society, and the extremes that people can go to.
The Holocaust Educational Trust teaches young people from all walks of life about the Holocaust – we train their teachers, provide them with memorable lessons, support them to hear from a survivor and take them to the sites where these atrocities took place.
They must know what happens when people look the other way, when a minority is scapegoated. They must know to remember the six million who were murdered, to honour those who survived, and to ensure that the future is brighter than the dark past that is leaving living memory.
This Holocaust Memorial Day - Remember the six million. Remember the 1.5 million children. Remember those whose entire families, villages and communities were wiped out. Remember that man can be capable of both – the inhumane and the righteous.
Remember the strength and humanity of those who survived - and light a candle, to remember the humanity of all of those murdered by the Nazis and to drive out the darkness of hate.
Karen Pollock is Chief Executive of the Holocaust Education Trust
