Why did the holocaust happen?

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by Eliyahu Silver

Half a century ago one of the most horrifying events in human history took place. Six million men, women, and children were murdered in a way that has no precedent in history. All these were civilians, non combatants. And many of them were not just killed, but tortured in a horrible way to their death, on a scale and with a ruthlessness that is beyond imagination.

Why did this happen?

Many people ask: “Where was G.d in Auschwitz?” The events that took place there were so terrible that many people lost their religion because of it. They say: ”If there is a G.d, how could He allow something like this to happen?" However, the fact of the matter is that the holocaust was a spiritual event. Instead of it being a proof for the non existence of G.d, it is a strong proof of His very existence. In order to understand this we have to go back in time, about 3300 years, to the Sinai desert, were G.d made a covenant with the Jewish people and gave them the Torah. The Torah consists of the first five books of the Hebrew and Christian bible. G.d commanded there the Jewish people 613 commandments that the Jewish people have to live by.

According this covenant the Jewish people said: “Everything that the Lord has said, we will do and we will obey.” Exodus 24:7

In this covenant G.d very clearly states what will befall the Jewish people when they will obey the covenant, and what will happen to them if they break the covenant. This is written in Leviticus 26 and in Deuteronomy 28. In short it comes down to this; when the Jews live according to G.ds commandments, the most beautiful blessings will be bestowed upon them. However, if they transgress these commandments, the most gruesome curses will come upon them:

Leviticus 26:14-39: “But if you will not listen to Me and will not perform all of these commandments, if you consider My decrees loathsome, and if your being reject My ordinances, so as not to perform all My commandments, so that you annul My covenant, then I will do the same to you; I will assign upon you panic, swelling lesions, and burning fever, which causes eyes to long and souls to suffer; you will sow your seeds in vain, for your enemies will eat it. I will turn My attention against you, you will be struck down before your enemies; those who hate you will subjugate you, you will flee with no one pursuing you.

If despite this, you do not heed me, then I shall punish you further, seven ways for your sins. I will break the pride of your might; I will make your heaven like iron and your land like copper. Your strength will be spend in vain; your land will not give its produce, and the trees of the land will not give its fruit.

If you behave casually with Me and refuse to heed Me, then I shall lay a further blow upon you; seven ways, like your sins. I will incite the wildlife of the field against you and it will leave you bereft of your children, decimate your livestock, and diminish you; and your roads will become desolate.

If despite these you will not be chastised towards Me, and you behave casually with Me, then I too, will behave toward you with casualness; and I will strike you, even I, seven ways for your sins. I will bring upon you a sword, avenging the vengeance of a covenant, you will be gathered into your cities; then I will bring pestilence among you and you will be delivered into the hand of your enemy. When I break you the staff of bread, ten woman will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight; you will eat and not be sated.

If despite this you will not heed Me, and you behave toward Me with casualness, I will behave toward you with a fury of casualness; I will chastise you, even I, seven ways for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. I will destroy your lofty buildings and decimate your sun-idols, I will cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and My Spirit will reject you. I will lay your cities in ruin and I will make your sanctuaries desolate; I will not savor your satisfying aromas. I will make the land desolate; and your foes who dwell upon it will be desolate. And you, I will scatter you among the nations, I will unsheathe the sword after you; your land will be desolate and your cities will be a ruin. . The survivors among you; I will bring weakness into their hearts in the land of their foes. The sound of a rustling leave will pursue them, they will flee as one flees the sword, and they will fall, but without a pursuer. They will stumble over one another as in flight from the sword, but there is no pursuer; you will not have the power to withstand your foes. You will become lost among the nations, the land of your foes will devour you. Because of their iniquity, your remnant will disintegrate in the land of your foes; and because the iniquities of there forefathers are with them as well, they will disintegrate.”

Deuteronomy 28:15-69: “But it will be that if you do not hearken to the voice of the Lord your G.d, to observe, to perform all His commandments and all his decrees that I command you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Accursed will you be in the city, and accursed will you be in the field. Accursed will be your fruit basket and your kneading bowl. Accursed will be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the offspring of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep and goats. Accursed will you be when you go in and accursed will you be when you go out. The Lord will send in your midst attrition, confusion, and worry, in your every undertaking that you will do, until you are destroyed and until you are quickly annihilated, because of the evil of your deeds, for having forsaken Me. The Lord will attach the plague to you, until it consumes you from upon the ground to which you are coming, to possess it. The Lord will strike you with swelling lesions, with fever, with burning heat, with thirst and with sword; and with wind blasts and with withering, and they will pursue you until destruction. Your heavens over your head will be copper and the land beneath you will be iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land dust and dirt; from heaven it will descend upon you until you are destroyed. The Lord will cause you to be struck down before your enemies; on one road you will go out against him, but on seven roads you will flee before him; and you will be a cause of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your carcass will be food for every bird of the sky and for every beast of the field and nothing will frighten them. The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with hemorrhoids, with wet and dry boils, of which you can not be cured. The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness, and with confounding of the heart. You will grope at noontime as a blind man gropes in the darkness, but you will not succeed on your way; you will be only cheated and robbed all the days, and there will be no savior. You will betroth a woman, but another man will lay with her; you will built a house, but you will not dwell in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not redeem it. Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat from it; your donkey will be robbed from before you, but it will not return to you; your flocks will be given to your enemies, and you will have no savior. Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will see and pine in vain for them all day long, but your hand will be powerless. A nation unknown to you will devour the fruit of your ground and all your labor, and you will be cheated and downtrodden all the days. You will go mad from the sight of your eye that you will see. The Lord will strike you with a foul boil, on the knees and the legs, that cannot be cured, from the sole of your foot to your crown. The Lord will lead you and your king whom you will set up over yourself to a nation that you never knew, neither you nor your forefathers, and there you will work for the gods of others, of wood and stone. You will be a source of astonishment, a parable, and a conversation piece, among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you. You will take abundant seed out to the field, but you will harvest little, for the locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and work them, but you will not drink and gather in, for the worm will eat it. You will have olive trees throughout your boundaries, but you will not anoint with oil, for your olives will drop. You will bear sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. All your trees and the fruits of your ground, the chirping locust will impoverish. The stranger who is among you will rise higher and higher, while you will descent lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be a head, but you will be a tail.

All these curses will come upon you and pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you will not have listened to the voice of the Lord your G.d, to observe all His commandments and decrees that He commanded you.

They will be a sign and a wonder in you and your offspring forever, because you did not serve the Lord your G.d amid gladness and goodness of heart, when everything was abundant. So you will serve your enemies that the Lord will send against you in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and without anything, and He will put an iron yoke on your neck, until He destroys you. The Lord will carry against you a nation from afar, from the end of the earth, as an eagle will swoop, a nation whose language you will not understand, a brazen nation that will not be respectful to the old nor gracious to the young. It will devour the fruit of your animals, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it will not leave you grain, wine, or oil, offspring of your cattle or flocks of your sheep and goats, until it causes you to perish. It will besiege you in all your cities, until the collapse of your high and fortified walls in which you trusted throughout your land; it will besiege you in all your cities, in all your land which the Lord your G.d has given you. You will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, which the Lord your G.d had given you; in the in the siege and distress that your enemies will distress you. The man among you who is tender and very delicate will turn selfish against his brother and the wife of his bosom, and against the remaining children that he has let survive, not to give even one of them of the flesh of his children that he will eat, not leaving anything for him, in the siege and distress that your enemy will distress you in all your cities. The tender and delicate woman among you, who had never tried to set the sole of her foot on the ground, because of delicacy and tenderness, will turn selfish against the husband of her bosom, and against her son and daughter, against the after birth that emerges from between her legs, and against the children that she will bear; for she will eat them in secret for lack of anything, in the siege and distress that your enemies will distress you in your cities.

If you will not be careful to perform the words of this Torah that are written in this Book, to fear this honored and awesome Name; Y-H-W-H your G.d, then The Lord will make extra ordinary your blows and the blows of your offspring; great and faithful blows, and evil and faithful illnesses. He will bring back upon you all the sufferings of Egypt, of which you were terrified, and they will cleave to you. Even any illness and every blow that is not written in this Book of Torah, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. You will be left few in number, instead having been like the stars of heaven in abundance, for you will not have hearkened to the voice of the Lord your G.d. And it will be that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to benefit you and multiply you, so the Lord will cause them to rejoice over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the ground to which you come to posses it. The Lord will scatter you among all the peoples, from the end of the earth to the end of the earth, and there you will work for the gods of others whom you did not know, you or your forefathers, of wood and stone. And among those nations you will not be tranquil, there will be no rest fore the sole of your foot; there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, longing of eyes, and suffering of soul. Your life will hang in the balance, and you will be frightened night and day, and you will not be sure of your livelihood. In the morning you will say: “Who can give back last night!” And in the evening you will say: “Who can give back this morning!” – because of the fright of your heart that you will fear and the sight of your eyes that you will see. The Lord will return you to Egypt in ships, on the road of which I said to you: “You shall never again see it!” And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as slaves and maidservants; but there will be no buyer. These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to seal with the Children of Israel in the land of Moab,”

When you read this, then the expression “fearing G.d” gets a whole new dimension.

Please take good notice who will bring these curses upon the Jewish people if they stray away from G.d:

“I will assign upon you panic, swelling lesions and burning fever, …” Leviticus 26:16

“I shall lay a further blow upon you; seven ways, like your sins, “ Leviticus 26:21

“I will strike you, even I, seven ways for your sins.” Leviticus 26:24

“I will cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols,” Leviticus 26:30

“The Lord (in the Hebrew text Y-H-W-H) will attach the plague to you, until it destroys you.” Deuteronomy 28:21

”The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with hemorrhoids, with wet and dry boils, of which you can not be cured.” Deuteronomy 28:27

“Even any illness and any blow that is not written in this book of Torah, The Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed.” Deuteronomy 28:61

It is not “the Devil”, “Satan” or blind chance causing all these disasters to happen, (may G.d have mercy) but it is Y-H-W-H our G.d Himself, who will punish the Jewish People if they stray away from Him and not obey His commandments.

In modern day western society the idea prevails that G.d is a nice, sweet person; G.d is “love”. However, G.d has also some other characteristics that are quite different;

“For The Lord your G.d is a consuming fire, a jealous G.d” Deuteronomy 4:24

“The Lord is a jealous and vengeful G.d; The Lord is vengeful and full of wrath; The Lord is vengeful to His adversaries and reserves hostility for His enemies. Who can stand before his fury, and who can rise against His burning wrath? His wrath is poured out like fire and rocks become shattered because of Him.” Nahum 1:2+6

“[I am the One] Who forms light and creates darkness; Who makes peace and creates evil; I am The Lord, Maker of all these.” Isaiah 45:7

“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that evil and good emanate?” Lamentations 3:37

So it is not only love and peace; G.d has also a very frightening side. And that is one theme that is repeated all through the Hebrew Bible: Fear G.d!

“The beginning of wisdom is the fear of The Lord” Psalm 111:10

“The fear of The Lord is the beginning of knowledge” Proverbs 1:7

“The beginning of wisdom is fear of The Lord.” Proverbs 9:10

”And He said to man: The fear of the Lord is wisdom.” Job 28:28

“The Lord your G.d shall you fear, Him shall you serve, and in His name shall you swear.” Deut 6:13

“So that You will fear The Lord your G.d, to observe His decrees and commandments,” Deut. 6:2

“Now O Israel, what does The Lord your G.d ask from you? Only to fear The Lord your G.d, to go in all His ways and to love Him, and to serve The Lord your G.d with all your heart and all your soul,” Deut. 10:12

Fearing G.d comes here before loving or serving G.d. And, as we have seen, there is plenty of reason to fear G.d. Which person in his right mind wants all these curses to be poured out upon him?

So now we know why the holocaust happened; because the Jews strayed away from G.d, and not for any other reason. If there are any Christians who read this, and who think that this happened because the Jews crucified Jesus, then read Exodus 20:5-6. Here G.d does say that He punishes the children for the sins of the fathers, but no further then the 4th generation. Therefore that theory is not valid. If there are any misguided Christians who think that this happened because the Jews don’t recognize Jesus as the messiah, then CLICK HERE and read the article.

The veracity of these words has been proven time after time in Jewish history. When the Jews don’t obey: “I will scatter you among the nations, I will unsheathe the sword after you; your land will be desolate and your cities will be a ruin.” Leviticus 26:33 “The Lord will scatter you among all the peoples, from the end of the earth to the end of the earth“ The Jews were almost 2000 years in exile, and the land of Israel has been desolated desert in the meantime. But, unfortunately, the holocaust was not the first time that these curses took effect. In the long, and often troublesome history of the Jewish People many disasters have befallen them. Every time the Jewish people strayed away from G.d these curses took effect. They were led in exile before. That was after Jerusalem and the first Temple were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar caused an extreme famine in Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah was a witness of this, and he wrote down what he saw in the book of Lamentations. Lam. 1:8; “Jerusalem sinned greatly.” And what is the result of this sin? “All her people are sighing, searching for bread” Lam.1:11 (compare Lev. 26:26) “The Lord in His anger has clouded the daughter of Zion. He cast down from heaven to earth the glory of Israel. He did not remember His footstool on the day of His wrath. The Lord consumed without pity all the dwellings of Jacob; in His anger He razed the fortresses of the daughter of Judah down to the ground; He profaned the kingdom and its leaders. He cut down in burning anger all the dignity of Israel; He drew back His right hand in the presence of the enemy. He burned through Jacob like a flaming fire, consuming on all sides. He bent his bow like an enemy; His right hand poised like a foe, He slew all who were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion He poured out His wrath like fire. The Lord became like an enemy. He consumed Israel; He consumed all her citadels; He destroyed its fortresses. He increased within the daughter of Judah moaning and mourning.” Lam 1:1-5

“The Lord has done what He has planned; He carried out His decree which He ordained from days of old; He devastated and did not pity. He let the enemy rejoice over you; He raised the pride of your foes.” Lam. 2:17 “Out on the ground, in the streets they lie, young an old; my maidens and my young man have fallen by the sword. You slew them on the day of your wrath; You slaughtered them; You showed no mercy.” Lam. 2:21 “You have enveloped yourself in anger and pursued us; You have slain, You have not shown mercy. You wrapped yourself in a cloud that prayer can not pierce. You made us filth and refuse amongst the nations.” Lam. 3:43-45 “The hands of compassionate woman have boiled there own children; they became their food in the ruination of the daughter of my people. Lam. 4:10 (compare Deut. 28:53) “They ravaged woman in Zion; maidens in the town of Judah. (compare Deut. 28:30) Leaders were hanged by the hand, elders were shown no respect. (compare Deut. 28:49-50) Young man drag the millstone, and youths stumble under the wood.” Lam. 5:11-12 (compare Deut 28:32+ 41)

“The Lord is righteous, for I disobeyed His utterance.” Lamentations 1:18

Here we can see that after the sinning of the Jewish people all these curses came true. And like that it will be, if the Jewish People don’t obey the word of G.d, and like that it was in the holocaust in the second world war. These curses are a sign and a wonder in the people of Israel forever. Deuteronomy 28:45-46

Every curse written in the Torah happened in those days when G.d poured out his wrath over Israel, because they strayed away from His Torah.

The prophet Daniel was one of the Jews that was exiled to Babylonia, and to him it was no big mystery why that disaster befell the Jews: Daniel 9:5-16; “We have sinned; we have been iniquitous; we have done evil; we have rebelled; and we have deviated from your commandments and Your ordinances. We did not heed your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your Name to our kings, our officers and our forefathers, and to all the populace of the land. To You O Lord is the righteousness, and to us is the shamefacedness, as of this very day, to the man of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all of Israel, those near and those far, in all the lands to which You have driven them, because of the betrayal by which they have betrayed You. O Lord, to us is the shamefacedness, to our kings, to our officers and to our forefathers, for we have sinned against you. To The Lord our G.d belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him, and we did not heed the voice of The Lord our G.d, to follow His teachings which He put before us through the hands of His servants, the prophets.

All Israel has transgressed Your Torah and has deviated, not heeding Your voice; so the curse and the oath that are written in the Torah of Moses, servant of G.d, have been poured out upon us, for we have sinned against Him. He upheld His word that He spoke about us and about our judges who judged us, to bring upon us great calamity; for under the entire heaven there has never been done as has been done in Jerusalem. Just as is written in the Torah of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us."

Why did the holocaust start in Germany?

Germany is the place from where the so called "reform Judaism" started. This consisted originally of Jews who abandoned the G.d given Torah. They said that the Torah was outdated, and that it was only relevant to the Jews who lived thousands of years ago in the desert, but modern man did not need that all. They discarded the concept of the Jewish people returning to Zion, to the land of Israel, and they took out of the prayerbook all parts that refered to a return to Zion. They said: "First we are Germans, and then we are Jews. No country has ever been so good to us as Germany. Berlin is our new Jerusalem." (sic)

What a tragic mistake.

This is about the same mistake that the American Jewry is making right now. The majority of American Jews belong eather to the reform or conservative movement, and there is no such thing left as fear of G.d or obedience to G.d's laws. If you want to know what will be the result of this, read the beginning of this article again. May G.d have mercy.

You think that things like that don't happen anymore in our modern day society? Look what just happened in Yugoslavia. That is not dark Afrika, but that is Europe.

"But no country has been so good to the Jews as America!"ww Right; that is excactly what the Jews in Germany used to say. The tide can turn in a blink of the eye. From the time that hitler (may his name rot) came to power in 1933 to the mass extermination of Jews is less then 10 years. As soon as it becomes clear to the world that we have no plans to give our beloved Jerusalem and an essential part of our small land to the Arabs, then the whole world will turn against the Jews and Israel. The European Union, who has a 2000 year long history of deporting, torturing and slaughtering Jews, already made it clear that as far as they are concerned the Jewish people has no right to govern Jerusalem. The sympathetic Germans, who recently started two world wars and brought unprecedented calamity upon the whole world, and who murdered just over 50 years ago 6 million innocent Jewish men, women and children in a bestial way, are now chairman of the Europian Union, and they think that they can teach the state of Israel some moral behavior.

When America was in war with Japan, all the Japanese communities in America ended up in concentration camps, because they were considered to be a threat to America. As soon as international sanctions are bestowed upon Israel, the same might happen to the Jews outside Israel, G.d forbid. The only way to prevent this is for the American Jews not only to turn back to G.d and His Torah, but also to return to Israel. The place for a Jew is in Israel, and not anywhere else. Deuteronomy 4:22, RSV, Moses speaking to the Jewish people; "For I must die in this land, I must not go over the Jordan; but you shall go over and take possession of that good land." He does not say 'you may take possession', but he says 'you shall take possession of that good land'. It is a commandment for a Jew to live in Israel. Rabbi Mosjeh ben Maimon, better known as the Rambam, says in Hilchot Malachiem (laws for kings) chapter 5 law 12: 'A Jew living outside of Israel is worshipping idols in purity.' This is based upon a statement of Rabbi Ishmael in de Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zorah 8a.

And now the good news.

What will happen if the Jewish People obey G.ds commandments?

Leviticus 26:1-13; “If you will follow my decrees and observe my commandments and perform them, then I will provide your rains in their time, and your land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your bread to satiety and you will dwell securely in your land. I will provide peace in the land, and you will lay down with none to frighten you; I will cause wild beasts to withdraw from the land, and a sword will not cross the land. Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand; and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. I will turn my attention to you, I will make you fruitful and increase you; and I will establish My covenant with you.

You will eat very old grain and remove the old to make way for the new. I will place My Sanctuary among you; and My Spirit will not reject you. I will walk among you, I will be G.d unto you and you will be a people unto Me. I am The Lord (Y-H-W-H), your G.d, Who took you out of the land of Egypt from being their slaves; I broke the staves of your yoke and I led you erect.”

Deuteronomy 28:1-14; “It shall be that if you hearken to the voice of The Lord, your G.d, to observe, to perform all of His commandments that I command you this day, then The Lord your G.d will make you supreme over all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of The Lord your G.d: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your animals; the offspring of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep and goats. Blessed shall be your fruit basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck down before you; on one road they will go out toward you and on seven roads they will flee before you. The Lord will command the blessing for you in your store houses and your every undertaking; and He will bless you in the land that The Lord , your G.d gives you. The Lord will confirm you for Himself as a holy people, as He swore to you; if you observe the commandments of The Lord your G.d, and you go in His ways. Then all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of The Lord is proclaimed over you, and they will revere you. The Lord shall give you bountiful goodness, in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your animals and the fruit of your ground, on the ground that The Lord swore to your forefathers to give you. The Lord shall open for you His store house of goodness, the heavens, to provide rain for your land in its time, and to bless all your handiwork; you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. The Lord shall place you as a head, and not as a tail; you shall only be above, and you shall not be below; if you hearken to the commandments of The Lord your G.d, that I command you today, to observe and to perform; and you do not turn away from any of the words that I command you today, right or left, to follow gods of others, to worship them.”

“I call heaven and earth today to bear witness against you: I have placed life and death before you, blessing and curse; choose life; so that you will live, you and your offspring, to love The Lord your G.d, to listen to His voice and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days, to dwell upon the land that The Lord swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” Deut. 30:19-20

Ecclesiastes, by King Salomon, the wisest man that ever lived, chapter 12, verse 13:

“The sum of the matter, when all has been considered: Fear G.d, and keep His commandments, for that is man’s whole duty. For G.d will judge every deed, even everything hidden, whether good or evil.”

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