But we have to ask what an Easter faith means in a post-holocaust world. The holocaust also challenges the way we Christians think about human beings and human civilization. And then we have to ask how it is possible that Christians were able to look the other way or even participate in the holocaust. The questions are fairly easy to delineate. But answers are more difficult, perhaps impossible for us.
Every attempt runs the risk of trivializing the reality of what took place.
One might argue that the attempt to find answers and explanations dishonors those who died and those who survived, that the only appropriate response is respectful silence. But silence is troubling, too. We must find ways to speak about that which is truly unspeakable. It is not uncommon for Christian theologians to reflect on that painful moment in Elie Wiesel's Night where he describes the hanging of a young boy in one of the death camps. The prisoners watch in horror as the child slowly dies.