Seems to me anyone who was hell bent on being hellbent before the holocaust, was still hellbent after it. The instrument of death has little to do with our standing before God in life. We are all rebellious and sinful, our destination was set at birth because of a rebellious nature common to our species (not the level of sin we bear, which will determine the degree of torment we brought upon ourselves). Who said their eternity would be similar, similar place yes, but not similar judgment. Jesus came to right that relationship between himself and humans who rebelled, which set the fallen world into the downward spiral we face today, Jesus was a lifeline God threw to men so if they did not survive what other men did to them or what they did to themselves, then at least they knew in whose arms they would end up after they passed over. It's not God's fault if when he sends out invitations and nobody R.S.V.P.s Don't stand outside our party complaining about those wise enough to accept the Kings gracious invitation and gift. Every rebellion (sin) that moved us over the line also moved us further into chaos. Homo mensura (man is the measure) is the humanist atheist credo, but some so-called christians who are little more than practical atheists, helped define their schisms and move their sects further away from God's ideal by believing they too were the measure which determined correct theology. You have killed the Kings messenger, distorted his message (which warned if we continue along this path we will fall by our own volition, into the pit) and his lifeline (Jesus' work of sacrificial atonement) to correct what rebellion lost. None of us came to him, however, he humbled himself and came to us. Further, there were some believing (Messianic) Jews in the holocaust who remained low key. All souls are prescious to God, Jew or Christian, Nazi or atheist, but if you treat him with disdain you key in your own future, if you slap his gift in the face what is left to atone for anyones stupidity? All these things are internally (logically) consistent with the Bible, it's only when you transpose your worldviews (foreign) expectations into the query that the inconsistencies are forced upon theism. Those are my thoughts, thanks for yours.

You stated the traditional orthodox Christian view on the atonement well. I was simply imagining a young Jew, say in his twenties, who was raised in a traditional Jewish home, taken by the Nazis and tortured and killed in the concentration camps. He was born a guilty sinner, because of the Fall, already destined for Hell. He was raised as a Jew, knew of Christianity, but just honestly believed in the principles of Judaism he was raised with. A hard working, honest young man. And in the very brief 20-some years he's lived he hasn't figured out the eternal truths. He then suffers through the Holocaust. He is murdered. And his soul awakens in an eternity of everlasting punishment because he did not accept a human/divine sacrifice in primitive Palestine to save him from the effects of something anther man, Adam, did thousands of years before that. If you believe this is the best design an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving being could create, I am sorry for you.

Soryy it took so long to get back. Often others' questions die the death of a thousand qualifications and your's seems to be heading that way. Some folks are better a smelling rotten eggs then they are at laying good ones. Please tell me what worldview you have in mind that offers the chance of redemption right up to the last breath we take with the assurance and promise of God that he will deliver? Tell me why is there anything rather than nothing at all? Tell me what is the meaning of life and where's its value? I imagine a young jew who realizes the well intentioned but misdirected leadership of his faith as being wrong and his reprieve lies in the hands of a forgiving God and not what other men say, how they pray or when they play (worship). If someone hasn't found the buried treasure it's probably because they don't want to believe it exists, are intellectually lazy or intentionally ignorant. So what is left if you choose to ignore the warning signs and the messengers who are here to guide you out of the dark forest into the light? The fault for your fate is passed onto you. Nobody helped me on my search for truth from my agnosticism, I worked hard and learned on my own because if I am going to face a righteous judge at the end of my life I will not suffer out of willfull ignorance of the facts. Further, sincerety although it is a nice thing to have, it really has little to do with truth, for we can be just as sincerely wrong as sincerely right. Truth must stand on its own merit away from feelings. Faith neither invents or ignores the facts to suit its own agenda, that kind of belief is credulity (baseless, ungrounded in reality belief)These are my thoughts, thanks for yours, it really is a good question but an old one stated several different ways.