Briefly interned at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (1938–1939), he escaped with his younger brother Wolfgang[3] to Great Britain, where his parents later joined him.

"He was always saying that continuing Jewish life and denying Hitler a posthumous victory was the 614th law," referring to the 613 mitzvot given to the Jews in the Torah.

"[7] This proposes that people of Jewish heritage have a moral obligation to observe their faith and thus frustrate Hitler's goal of eliminating Judaism from the earth.

A professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and a Reform rabbi, he did not become a Zionist until 1967, when his reaction to the Holocaust and its implications for Jewish law crystallized: It was at a meeting, just before the Six-Day War.

[citation needed] Fackenheim applied this reasoning to the state of Israel and its Law of Return as a necessity to prevent a second Holocaust.

[8] This opinion carries clout with most Jewish people although the specifics of how to apply it in contemporary politics is a subject of debate.

In the late twentieth century, efforts to document the memories of remaining Holocaust survivors echoed the notion that preserving these facts for future generations was a way to keep Hitler and his ideas in the grave.

[12] Richard A. Cohen of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte cites it in an essay, "The Holocaust is a Christian Issue.

Robert A. Hill quotes Fackenheim in a sermon with this context: ...the fact is that Christianity has been pervasively guilty of latent and patent anti-Semitism and the Gospel of John has been one of its sources.

We have and can learn from this failure, by carefully monitoring our use of religious language...and our Jewish brothers and sisters can teach us to continue, with Jacob, to wrestle with God.

Gregory Baum, a German-born Catholic theologian and Professor Emeritus in Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal, expresses the effect of this concept on Christian views toward conversion.

While they may not be sure of the theological grounds that dispense them from this mission, the churches have become aware that asking the Jews to become Christians is a spiritual way of blotting them out of existence and thus only reinforces the effects of the Holocaust.

She rejected newspaper attempts to characterize her as a Jew following the bombing of Hiroshima when the press learned that she had been the first scientist to recognize nuclear fission.

Although the Nazis stole her savings and ruined her career she refused to work on the bomb or let Hitler define her identity.

It is the story of the steps taken towards becoming a community bound by a holy covenant, where social relationships are defined by the Godly principles of tzedek and chesed, justice and love.

[18] The same criticism was formulated by Jewish philosopher Michael Wyschogrod in his 1971 review of God's Presence in History.

"[19]: 292  Not satisfied with criticism, however, Wyschogrod offered a traditional explanation of the Jewish claim to uniqueness and chosenness formulated in positive terms.

The Shoah has become our instant raison d'etre, the short-cut answer to the penetrating questions of our children: 'Why should I not marry out of the faith?