What Was God's Role in Auschwitz?

One part of the immense distance that separates Gentiles from the Jewish experience of Auschwitz is the role of God there. Of course many atheists and many Christians died there, along with people who had believed in humanity and in the future. But there is a peculiar quality of claustrophobic horror in Jewish reflections on the matter, for they are the chosen people whose whole history is of wrangling with God; yet an omnipotent God singled them out for this dreadful fate. If we disregard the frankly disgusting suggestion that they deserved it, there is no explanation possible and certainly not one that does not sound glib. Yet that does not stop the conversation.

Otto Dov Kulka approaches this in two ways. The first is so indirect as to leave almost no traces. He talks about beauty: the most beautiful and innocent experience of his childhood, he says, was watching the skies of southern Poland where "silver-coloured toy aeroplanes carrying greetings from distant worlds pass slowly across the azure skies while around them explode what look like white bubbles. The aeroplanes pass by and the skies remain blue and lovely, and far off, far off on that clear summer day, distant blue hills as though not of this world make their presence felt."