Q&A: A people so full of culture and values — how did it commit the Holocaust?
A people so full of culture and values — how did it commit the Holocaust?
Question
I have a question that gives me no peace.
How did a people full of culture and values reach such a low point?
Isn’t it discouraging, if so, to invest in being good and ethical at all?
At the end of the day, maybe I’ll invest, and in another generation or two my descendants will be predatory beasts?
Maybe it’s a bit of a strange question, but it’s been bothering me for many years…
Answer
It is indeed a strange question, and also not very well defined. So I’ll ignore it.
Discussion on Answer
That question is the most worn-out question in relation to the Holocaust, and all kinds of answers have been given to it. I don’t see what I have to add to that whole mishmash. The fact that people can reach acts of atrocity is a fact of life that depends on them and on the circumstances, partly accidental and partly not, and there is no algorithm for prevention. You need to be a good person, that’s all.
Sorry, I’m not familiar with answers on the subject.
Can the Rabbi point me somewhere?
(To something that sounds reasonable.)
I have no idea. Search online. There are millions who have dealt with this. It’s a question that comes up in every conversation about the Holocaust.
The German people were a people of order, development, culture, and values. They had everything we would want to have ourselves…
Suddenly they got up and murdered like predatory beasts.
My question is: how does that happen?
What do we need to watch out for?
At the end of the day, we want technological, cultural, and moral progress, מתוך the understanding that this is what is fitting and right.
Where was their failure, so that we can know what to beware of?