I watched this movie last night. It was a thought-provoking Masterpiece Theater production which walked us through a mock trial held by a group of male prisoners at the Auschwitz death camp during WWII. Who was on trial? God. The prisoners accused God of breach of covenant, not murder or conspiracy, but a breach of the covenant between him and the Jewish people. (I’ll use the term “him” or “he” when I refer to God because that was what was used in the movie.) The prisoners stated that, in this covenant, God promised that the Jewish people would survive forever – they were the “chosen ones.” The mock trial revolved around the idea that God broke this covenant (contract) by allowing (or orchestrating) the Holocaust and thereby not guaranteeing the future of the Jewish people. It begged an answer of the ultimate question of so many who were in the camps and those of us who were effected many years later either directly through family members or indirectly through books, movies, travel and stories: How could a God who is supposedly all-loving and all-powerful allow such atrocities to happen to innocent people? That question was how the movie began. By the end of the movie we are left questioning whether God is loving or powerful at all.
If you believe what is written in the Bible and look at the world’s history of war, genocide, famine, and the human desire for power, you could conclude that God is not loving. If you watch a sunset, smell a flower or listen to the laugh of a child, you could conclude that God is loving but not powerful enough to manipulate the choices humans make (with their own free will) in their search for power. Or you could conclude that there is no God and that humans beings are the way we are because of brain chemistry or how we were raised, the old nature vs. nurture debate. Who knows? I sure don’t.
In the movie we are also left to examine the idea of free will. One of the prisoners says that there is always a choice, that everyone has free will because we always have choices. But is that really true? Another prisoner tells a story of how a SS officer, who had just stripped his three sons from him to take them to a concentration camp, asked him to chose which one of his three sons he wanted to keep with him. He was forced to chose between his sons. But did he really have a choice if the “choice” was forced upon him? Do people who kill in the name of God, or Allah, or because the voices in their heads tell them to do so have a choice or were they brainwashed as children or are their brains broken because of a chemical imbalance or severe abuse? Where is their free will? Where is God in this?
These are questions that are too big for my little brain to wrap itself around. I cannot answer them, nor can anyone else. The “judges” in the movie do render a verdict, but for me the jury is still out.
So Jennifer, you had me gripped, what was the verdict? I say God, Guilty as charged, but I guess that is a fairly rational conclusion given the fact that he would be all powerful and I guess subsequently all knowing. I got off work late tonight so I will not even attempt to try to ponder the questions of your blog, there is not enough ambien in the world that would be able to put me to sleep after that one. But I enjoyed your post immensely, sounds like a fascinating movie. Also, I guess it wasn’t God who placed the Jews in concentration camps it was the Nazi’s, and given the fact that we all have free will, in the end it was individuals who carried forth these actions. But I guess this also poses the next obvious question of obedience, and in the end this is where we faith and of course courage comes in. Nothing in the bible would ever condone mass execution of anyone, and the people who carry forth these actions are as guilty as Hitler I believe. My recent thoughts on religion is that it is essentially good. It is based on love for your neighbor and understanding. I have decided that it has made me a more compassionate, sensitive, and loving individual. And that it is not God that is responsible for these actions: disease, famine, cancer, losing a loved one in child birth, the death of children, relative, the list goes on and on, I believe is easier to understand WHEN we have the support of a community of faith that we may fall back on. And in the end religion (in studies, and in practice) makes us happier, and more accepting individuals. In my recently new opinion this is enough. I believe it is better to believe in something and to share this with community than to live a life without it. The Jury should vote God guilty, but give him an early pardon for the majority of good behavior!!
I somehow missed this. Found it by accident. It’s man that created the holocaust and looked the other way while it happened. It has nothing to do with God who gave us free will and the ability to choose right or wrong. Most Germans looked the other way, as did other countries who refused to allow Jews to come into their country at that time. It’s so easy to blame God instead of ourselves. Like John F Kennedy said, “On earth God’s work must truly be our own.”