The National Geographic TV channel recently broadcast several documentaries in commemoration of D-Day, the first day of the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944 during World War II.

In the film footage, Adolph Hitler, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and General George S. Patton appear in dream-like sequences. On film, human history looks like a dream. At its worst, history is a nightmare.

During World War II, the list of war crimes, perpetrated by Nazi Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union and many other nations, including the US and the UK, was almost ‘endless’. It is estimated that up to two million German women were raped by Soviet soldiers during the occupation of Germany at the end of the war.

As he shivered in the damp and disease-ridden trenches of World War I, Arthur West wrote in his diary that he did not think there was “a God at all responsible for governing the earth... mankind is perpetually puffing itself up with unearthly loyalties and promised rewards”.

When Pope Benedict visited Auschwitz in 2006 (picture), he was far from reassuring about whether there was “a God at all responsible for governing the earth”. He asked the question that made millions lose their faith after the Holocaust: “Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?” (May 29, 2006).