Dear Ted: first I believe there are no stupid questions. There are people who don't always know what or how to ask. There are also people who are too lazy or don't care. I suggest you contact a rabbi or a university with a Jewish studies program and ask for a reading list to help answer your questions. Maybe your girlfriend can help. You should interview and listen to people who survived the Holocaust, many of them children at the time, and ask what THEY did to deserve what happened to them and their families. I'm betting the answer is "nothing." It's no different than what has happened to other peoples, in other ages, including the American Indian, the Armenians, the Kurds, Australian Aborigines, and so on. Each of these peoples have their own religions, cultures, languages and homelands. Jews however are united by a covenant-faith (with various interpretations), part of which includes occupying a section of the Middle East. I believe the main reason Jews have such "problems" is that they insist on maintaining this covenant-faith and, as much as is possible, self-determination within a national homeland. Whether one believes God has a role in this is another question.