... wrote about his conflicts with God, especially during and after the Holocaust, in the triology "Night", "Dawn" and "Day" ...
One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains - one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel ... All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him ... The three victims mounted together onto the chains.
The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.
"Long live liberty!" cried the two adults.
But the child was silent.
"Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked.
At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over ...
Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive ...
For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"Where is God now?"
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
"Where is He? Here He is - He is hanging here on the gallows ..."
We all have moments of questioning, of doubting, of uncertainty, even if the pain we face paled in comparison to those described by Elie Wiesel ... yet, it is how darkness turns into light which is fascinating about humans and God ...
Maybe sometimes, we just need to believe ...
"I believe in the sun, even when it doesn't shine.
I believe in love, even when I don't feel it.
I believe in God, even when He is silent."
~ an inscription on the wall of a cellar in Cologne (where some Jews remained hidden for the entire duration of the war)
