Kaddish

"And praised. Auschwitz. Be. Majdanek. The Lord. Treblinka. And praised. Buchenwald. Be. Mauthausen. The Lord. Belzec. And praised. Sobibor. Be. Chelmno. The Lord. Ponary. And praised. Theresienstadt. Be. Warsaw. The Lord. Vilna. And praised. Skarzysko. Be. Bergen-Belsen. The Lord. Janow. And praised. Dora. Be. Neuengamme. The Lord. Pustkow. And praised… Amen."

Here, on the wall at Yad Vashem, we find the opening phrase of the mourners' Kaddish, the Aramaic prayer for the dead, interspersed with names of concentration prisons and death facilities, Eastern European ghettos and sits of devastating loss.  The prayer belongs to André Schwarz-Bart ("The Last of the Just")...and it asks more questions than it answers.  How can believers continue to believe in the midst of such brutality and evil?  What kind of faith can survive such loss and violence?  Where is God to be found?