“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”
Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 32.
God’s Betrayal
Elie Wiesel’s book Night proved to be too dark for the podcast. It is one of the more chilling, horrific and stirring accounts from the Holocaust. Wiesel was taken to Auschwitz when he was 14; his young sister and mother were murdered immediately. The rest of his family soon followed, with the exception of his father, who endured unspeakable torments before he eventually died in the arms of his son. Wiesel documents in short, clear, unvarnished terms how he lost his family and his faith.
Before the camp, Wiesel was a devoutly Jewish young boy. He prayed intensely, even to the point of tears, every day. In many ways, he was more pious than his entire family, despite their shared investment in communal religious observance. He sought deeper religious teachings from his community, and spent his days reading and studying the Torah, the Cabbala, and the Zohar. When the horrors of the holocaust were unleashed, he lost his faith in God while simultaneously hating Him for abandoning His people.
After continually attending prayer sessions within the concentration camps, where faithful Jews continued to pray and worship, Wiesel writes,
“Yes, man is very strong, greater than God. When You were deceived by Adam and Eve, You drove them out of Paradise. When Noah’s generation displeased You, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom no longer found favor in Your eyes, you made the sky rain down fire and sulphur. But these men here, whom You have betrayed, whom You have allowed to be tortured, butchered, gassed, burned, what do they do? They pray before You! They praise Your name!”
Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 64.
Elie Wiesel & Atheism
Wiesel later described his faith as “wounded,” calling himself an agnostic. But for those who would take the Holocaust as justification for atheism, it is important to note that, on atheism, there is no distinction between putting a Jew in an oven and putting a pizza in an oven. Materialism is that view which gave birth to the Holocaust in the first place. Those who become atheists in the face of the Nazis are, in some sense, adopting the view of the Nazis.
Viktor Frankl, who also survived Auschwitz, observes,
“The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment–or, as the Nazis liked to say, “of blood and soil.” I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”
Viktor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul (New York: Knopf, 1982), xxi.
Of course, the question of unspeakable evil in God’s world is one which must be taken seriously, but every worldview has to give an account for evil in the world. Not all atheists are Nazis, but Materialism has no intellectual resources to condemn moral behavior. On atheism, evil is just a human construct. It doesn’t exist. Wiesel’s de-conversion from theism to anti-theism means that, on Wiesel’s own novel view, all suffering is meaningless.
Atheism implies that the Nazi’s are no more wrong than a shark who eats a seal, or a rock which smashes another. Atheists who complain about evil are using the moral standard given them by God in order to hate Him for supposedly violating it. But once God is rejected, the transcendent, objective moral law which they cite to condemn God (and the Nazis) is lost.
We can scarcely blame Wiesel for his emotional rejection of the Most High after his experiences. Wiesel continued to wrestle with belief in God, ultimately calling himself an agnostic until his death on July 2, 2016. Perhaps Wiesel did come to see that if God does not exist, there is no justice to long for, nor injustice to rage against. In an incredible interview with Cathleen Falsini, Wiesel says,
I cannot not believe. . . No faith is as pure as a wounded faith because it is faith with an open eye. I know all the elements of the situation; I know all the reasons why I shouldn’t have faith. I have better arguments against faith than for faith. Sure, it’s a choice. And I choose faith.
Elie Wiesel, quoted from Cathleen Falsini, The God Factor (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006). https://www.cathleenfalsani.com/elie-wiesel-on-wounded-faith-i-cannot-not-believe/
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The original publication of this article insinuated that Wiesel became and remained an atheist. It was revised shortly after publication to clarify Wiesel’s agnosticism, and reflect more respect for his nuance and complex views.