What should be done with the Nazi death camps? Primo Levi was sure that if they had asked the Auschwitz survivors at the moment of their liberation, their answer would have been: "Away with it all. Flatten it all, tear it down to the soil, together with Nazism and everything that is German." But with time, he changed his mind, praising the preservation of these sites which "educate better than any treatise or memorial".
Among rabbis who survived the Holocaust a fascinating debate developed over the value of Holocaust education and trips to the camps.
Lord Jakobovits was just 15 years old in November 1936 when he and his family fled from Berlin. It must have affected his life profoundly, but as chief rabbi, he steadfastly opposed proposals to prioritise Holocaust education and commemoration. He argued that those immersed in memorialising the past failed to create a strong Jewish future, whereas Charedi Jews, who shunned Holocaust ceremonies but invested heavily in religious education, were flourishing.
His challenging message is not the only religious approach. My yeshivah head, Rabbi Yehuda Amital, was a Romanian Holocaust survivor. His parents were murdered in Auschwitz, while he survived in a Nazi labour camp. Rabbi Amital offered no easy explanations for the deaths of millions of Jews and our yeshivah curriculum never strayed from classic Talmud study; still, he bitterly complained about what he called "the suppression of the Holocaust". He argued that it was impossible to have an honest encounter with God without first confronting the magnitude of the suffering of our people in modern times. He railed against those who constructed modern, messianic theologies around Israel as if the Holocaust had never happened. It was, he felt, deeply dishonest.
Immersing ourselves in grief, visiting sites of destruction and raising theological questions is not new. Two thousand years ago, as the Temple lay in ruins, four rabbis made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Approaching Mount Scopus, now the site of the Hebrew University, their shock was palpable. They peered out at the ruins, rending their clothes in mourning. Continuing their journey, they ascended the Temple Mount where their grief over the death and destruction was magnified when they saw a fox trotting over our most sacred site, the Holy of Holies. Three of the rabbis tore their clothes again and wept.
This is the grief that I experienced with the British delegation of the March of the Living last year. It happened as we stood at the mass grave in Warsaw cemetery and survivor Arek Hersh told us of his own childhood experience digging mass graves. It happened again, passing through the gas chambers and crematoria of Majdanek. And it entirely enveloped me as I stood before an enormous urn filled with the ashes of murdered Jews. The guides speak of how you can see bones poking out. It's an overwhelming experience which challenged my religious foundations.
Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira was a Chasidic rabbi in the Warsaw Ghetto. Shortly before he was taken away and murdered at the Trawniki concentration camp, he spoke about maintaining his faith while surrounded by the starvation, disease and murder of his community.
He explained that while normally religious energy should draw on joy and appreciation of the beauty of God's world, sometimes, when our suffering becomes too great, we can join God in his secret chamber where he too weeps for His people. In the midst of our pain, anguish and depression, we cry with God and we are uplifted by this meditative moment.
It's a mystical idea, but I think we got just a taste of it walking silently through Auschwitz; absorbing and reflecting on what happened there.
Of the four rabbis who visited the Temple Mount, three wept as they witnessed the destruction but one, Rabbi Akiva, laughed. "Why do you laugh?" asked his colleagues. "Because," he answered, "I have seen the most terrible biblical prophecies of destruction come true, and therefore I am convinced that the prophecies of return, reawakening and joy will also come to pass."
In Poland, we paid homage, as best we could, to the victims of the greatest brutality inflicted by humanity. As we stepped back from the destruction, we were numb, broken, tearful and filled with awe and respect for those who were murdered and those who survived.
Judaism, according to the great American scholar Rav Soloveitchik, is all about how we respond to life. So, although none of was ready to laugh with Rabbi Akiva, we came away united, inspired and energised. Each of us in their own way was committed to change; whether by strengthening their Jewish community, upgrading their Jewish observance, supporting Israel, or helping the vulnerable in the UK, Israel and around the world.
Marching with the living turned out to be a march for Jewish life.
