"Where is God?"

Miami, Florida Holocaust Memorial

     First of all I interpret the photo as God's hand and his followers grasping for his help, but no one can reach safety. This photo really helps visualize Weisel's loss of faith. "Akiba Drumer had left us....we forgot to say Kaddish." (76-77 Weisel) is the passage I feel it best connects with. The men in the camp have just been chosen for selection and Akiba Drumer has accepted his fate. "He just kept repeating that it was all over for him, that he could no longer fight, he had no more strength, no more faith." (76 Weisel). Weisel is using parallelism to show the loss of strength and emotion, as well as the way he writes it he is very blunt and too the point, that Akiba just cannot do it mentally or physically. As you read further into the passage Drumer says "It's over. God is no longer with us....How can I believe, how can anyone believe in this God of mercy?" (76-77 Weisel) Drumer can't even bring himself to believe in his God anymore, he begins to question his once unquestionable God is no longer an answer. The God in the photo doesn't have answers either, he has left his followers out to dry, those who still cling to him forget to recite Kaddish for Akiba.

  The people who are still grappling with God's mercy are the ones represented on the arm. Weisel says "if only he could have kept his faith in God, if only he could have considered this suffering a divine test..." (77 Weisel). Using parallelism again helps to enforce the idea that if one clings to God they have the chance of living another day. All of Akiba's friends promise to day Kaddish the day he faces his demise, but they never do, "There followed terrible days. We received more blows than food. The work was crushing. And three days after he left, we forgot to day Kaddish." (77 Weisel). The way Weisel explains themselves is short, blunt and that was that. Akiba was one of the fallen, never reached the safety of God's finger tips.