The Holocaust: Where was God?

John Chilag is a survivor of Auschwitz. He spent a year in the camps when he was 16 before getting liberated by the Americans.

John says: "There wasn't any way of getting out of the camps apart from as a corpse. I was living in Hungry when the Germans occupied in March 1944. They rounded up all the Jews and I was taken to Auschwitz.

"I hoped that I didn't lose hope, but by 1944, everyone just had to survive another day and then another day and another day. There were far too many other days to come but nevertheless that was the only hope we had.

"I'm afraid my faith didn't help me. I didn't come from a religious family and I personally lost whatever little faith but other people who had no faith before, became very strong in their faith.

"The most important lesson I learnt from the holocaust is we have to fight indifference. The perpetrators of the holocaust were very small in number. But a large proportion of people just stood by and watched and that is what we have to fight. If people would react even in a minor way then the problem would have been solved."

Arek Hersh was born in Poland and was taken to his first concentration camp when he was only eleven years old. The camp started out with 2,500 men, eighteen months later only 11 were alive. Arek moved round several camps before being taken to Auschwitz.

Arek explains: "I did survive but 80 members of my family were murdered, my parents, my cousins, everybody. There were 5,000 Jews in our town and only 40 came out alive.

"I tell young people not to hate, and to respect other people. Not to be prejudiced and I hope the world gets a better place.

"There was no hope in some of the camps. Every day there was starvation and beatings so you do lose hope. But somehow as we knew the Germans were getting defeated we kept on, and the thought that maybe some people in the family survived, that kept me going.

"But in the end I lost all hope and all faith, but somehow I came back to my faith. Today I do pray and I pray for a better world and maybe that mankind and human beings will learn to be tolerant and to live in peace.

"Towards the end I didn't think there was a God, I didn't have any faith any more. Then slowly after the war I came back to it. A Rabbi came to talk to us in the hostel and I asked him: 'Why, men, women and children that did nothing wrong? They were gassed and burned, why? If there is a God why did he allow that to happen.' He answered saying: 'It wasn't God that did this it was Man that did it.' Somehow that brought me back to my religion and believing.

"But the lowest point of my life was when I came to England and realised that no-one from my family had survived. And as the years went by I thought was it worth it for me to survive? I was struggling and I had a lot of problems, emotional problems and nightmares. If you are a young person here you can talk to your parents, ask them questions, I never had that chance and it upset me a lot. Eventually I've learned to live with it and I had a family and then grandchildren and that kept me sane."

Remember together
From across different faiths people will be gathering together to remember the holocaust and those who died and were persecuted during the Nazi regime, find out what's going on where you live.

Out of the ashes of the Holocaust
Out of Ashes is a new exhibition in Dewsbury, is based on the holocaust experiences of two Jewish artists.

How Kirklees remembered the holocaust
An exhibition to remember the holocaust has opened in Dewsbury Museum. We went along to find out more and speak to some of the holocaust survivors.

The Holocaust: Where was God?
Millions of people were killed in the Holocaust and many of those who survived were left traumatised and angry with God. We have been speaking to a survivors living in West Yorkshire and asking them where was God in the Holocaust?