The association Zakhor! (“Remember”) was formed many years ago by Yisrael Yehoshua Eibeschitz, a Holocaust survivor from Poland for the purpose of keeping alive among our people, the memory of the Holocaust.
Eibeschitz is the author of many books and numerous articles in the Hebrew and Yiddish press, which describe not only the Holocaust and its horrors and the suffering of the victims, but also the heroism of the latter. their active and passive resistance to the murderers and their spiritual struggle with their persecutors.
He tells of Jews determined to remain loyal to their faith, endeavoring to observe the laws of their religion, in ghettoes and prisons, in labor, concentration and death camps. They did so in defiance of the orders of the slave drivers and executioners and under the most inhuman conditions. Starvation and terror could not rob the broad Jewish masses of their Jewish and human qualities. Jews risked their lives to save fellow Jews. Jews shared their last slices of bread with other Jews; Jews jumped into burning synagogues to salvage Torah scrolls.
Several of Eibeschitz’ books are devoted to the heroism and self sacrifice of Jewish women during the Holocaust.
In 1986 Eibeschitz established in Haifa the Hedva Eibeschitz Institute for Holocaust Studies. Every year, thousands of people, young and old attend courses given at the institute and visit the Holocaust exhibits being held there.
Since 1980 the association Zakhor has been publishing a yearbook by the same name, which features accounts, memories and diaries by Holocaust survivors. Until now, 12 volumes of this important publication have appeared.
A short time ago the first volume of Remember, an English edition of the Zakhor yearbooks came off the press in Israel. The volume which was compiled and translated by Anna Eilenberg Eibeshitz includes many first person accounts by survivors.
The chapters of the book are replete with stories about the self sacrificing devotion of Jews to their faith and people during the Hitler era. Only a few of these can be mentioned here.
Cecile S. Fuchs tells of Belgian and French Jewish children whose parents had been deported by the Germans. These children were given gentile names and placed in various boarding schools in Central France by a clandestine Jewish organization.
When the schools closed for the (1943) Christmas season and the Christian students returned to the homes of their parents, the Jewish organizations didn’t know what to do with the Jewish children.
“The Almighty, in His inimitable way, did not let us down — a solution was found!” writes Cecile Fuchs.
“Up in the mountains our assigned leaders discovered a group of vacant wooden barracks and remnants of a dismantled military camp. Bunks were scrubbed and where glass remained the windows were washed. With fearful anticipation, we took possession of our small empire on the day the schools were closed. There were 100 of us between the ages of 10 and 25.
“Officially, and under our assumed Christian identities, we were boy and girl scouts and we performed all required scout routines very diligently; the French flag was raised every morning for all Frenchmen to see. The Marseillaise was sung loudly for all Frenchmen to hear, but of course these maneuvers were an astute lifesaving cover-up. For in truth, behind the thin dilapidated walls, a very unique Jewish seminary was taking root. Youngsters with or without faith, with or without religious background, engaged spontaneously and wholeheartedly, in Hebrew singing and dancing, Torah studying and religious discussions, which sometimes lasted through the night. Former Yeshiva students and graduates conducted services mornings and evenings, and led us in prayer before and after the meals. No “princess” was ever as enthusiastically greeted as was “Princess Shabbath” that first Friday evening. All school homework stopped at noon on Friday and we prettied up for Shabbath.”
TO be continued
The Jewish Press, Friday, Nov. 13, 1992
Continued from last week
Naomi Winkler, a native of Munkacz, tells in her account of the religious devotion of Jewish women in the concentration camps through which she passed.
“On Tisha Be’Av in the Glazenberg concentration camp, we fasted and sat on the ground. It was very difficult to conceal our fasting from the eyes of the SS men. They were around us all the time to make sure that we did not observe any religious custom. But some girls from Bukovina, who were in the Rashad camp were permitted to move around in the city. They visited the Jewish cemetery and walked around the graves three times saying Kaddish for their relatives and friends who perished in the faraway death camp.”
Moses Abraham was a resident of Salonika. The Salonikan Jews arrived in Auschwitz in 1943. The journey from Greece to Poland took 10 days. The first encounter of the Salonikans with their Jewish brethren from Eastern Europe was a disappointment. Among the Kapos who drove them to hard labor, and among the Sonderkommandos who led many of their children into the gas chambers, were men who spoke Yiddish.
However, before long the ice between the Salonikas and the other Jews was broken.
“A great miracle happened to us, really a miracle, “Abraham writes. “It was on Shabbat night, at midnight. In the large barrack there was darkness, most of the incarcerated lay, like dead on the wooden bunks. Only one Salnokan, David Don Pinchon, suddenly had the urge to sing the Sefardi chant in honor of the Sabbath, Vayekadshehu.
“When the Salonikan David started to sing the chant, a Jew jumped from his bunk, a tzaddik from the Warsaw Ghetto. His name was Rabinowitz. I remember well his name, even though he was murdered afterwards. And this Jew began kissing the Salonikan, for he dared to sing the holy chant here in Auschwitz. He sang the Shabbath chant Vayekadsheu, and the Tzaddik Rabinowitz called more Jews and asked that they listen to the singing of the Salonikan. Since then a brotherly covenant was created in Auschwitz between the Salonikan and the Polish Jews.’
Yisrael Yehoshua Eibeschitz depicts in his essay the Kiddush Hashem of Rabbi Abraham Mordecai Marocco, the rabbi of Woidowa Poland, about which he had been told by Yacov Laode, who was an eyewitness.
One day the Germans stormed into the town asking for the address of the rabbi. A Pole showed them the way. The Germans burst into the house of the rabbi, beat him, pulled his pe’oth and set his beard on fire. One of the murderers discovered a Torah scroll in the rabbi’s room The rabbi was asked to explain the purpose of this “strange and suspicious object.” After the rabbi had told them that this was a Torah, the Germans decided to force him to set fire to the sacred scroll in front of the town’s people.
The rabbi, holding the scroll in his arms was pushed out of the house and under a hail of blows and lashes was marched to the market square. The town’s drummer called all the inhabitants to come and watch the spectacle.
“The chief of the murderers approached the rabbi and took the Torah scroll from his hands. He poured gasoline on it and ordered the rabbi: ‘ Set fire to this scroll and if you do not do so, you shall die here like a dog.’
“The Rabbi recoiled… Trembling, he screamed with all his might, in a voice not his own, which echoed through the entire town: “””””””””””No! No! G-d forbid in no way!”
“Then the chief murderer poured a can of petrol on the head of the rabbi and set fire to the rabbi and the sacred Torah scroll. A tremendous flame burst forth and the wild multitude of Germans and Poles screamed with joy…
“A gigantic pillar of fire erupted and surrounded the rabbi. In the midst of the flame the saintly rabbi succeeded in grasping the Sefer Torah in his arms, embracing and kissing it, while screaming with all his might: Hear o Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One…”
(Conclusion next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, Nov 20, 1992
Conclusion
One chapter describes the fate of the Jewish girls who made the Auschwitz revolt possible. They worked in an ammunition factory and supplied gunpowder to the Sonderkommandos, who staged the revolt and succeeded in blowing up one of the crematoria.
One of the leaders of the uprising was Rabbi Leib Langfuss who had been the rabbi of Makow Mazoweicki. After his arrival in Auschwitz he was selected for the Sonderkommandos. Former residents of his town made great efforts to prevent the rabbi from being employed in the burning of the corpses and arranged for him some other work such as sweeping the courtyard of crematorium.
When the Sonderkommandos planned their uprising, Rabbi Langfuss expressed his willingness to wrap himself in explosives, enter the crematorium and blow himself up together with the installation. During the insurrection, which did not proceed as planned the crematorium was destroyed by others. Rabbi Langfuss survived the rebellion. He was later killed by the Germans.
Rabbi Langfuss recorded all he saw and heard in Auschwitz. In his writings, which he buried in various places in the camp, he depicts the cruel tortures in which the Jews were subjected by the Germans before they were put to death. He lists all the “transports,” stating their places of origin and how many Jews each had brought.
In the book before us almost 15 pages are filled with extracts from Rabbi Langfuss’ accounts.
“Among the transport arriving from Bendzin and Sosnowiec was an old rabbi,” Langfuss writes. “As residents of the immediate vicinity, the deportees knew that they were being taken to their death. The rabbi entered the dressing room and the bunker singing and dancing. He was privileged to die for the Sanctification of the Name of G-d!”
Langfuss also relates:
On Passover 1944 a transport arrived at Auschwitz which included the Rebbe of Boyan, Rabbi Moshe Friedman. He had been one of the great Jewish scholars of Poland; a truly patriarchal figure. When the Jews were undressing — prior to their being led to the gas chambers– the rabbi addressed the German Oberscharfuehrer in German: “You cruel murderers, human scum, do not think that you will succeed in destroying the Jewish people. The Jewish people will live forever and will not vanish from the stage of history. but you despicable murderers, will reap your rewards. For each Jew killed, ten Germans will die. You will be wiped out and will disappear, not only as a power, but as a people. The day of vengeance and reprisal is at hand…” He spoke with great feeling. When he had finished he put on his hat and recited with intense fervor the Shema Yisrael. The Jews responded “Shema Yisrael…” with great emotion, born of the deep faith which inspired them in the last moments of their lives.
These are only a few of the many stories of Jewish devotion, heroism and Kiddush Hashem related in Remember!, the reading of which is a must for every Jews. The association Zakhor and the compiler and translator Anna Eilenberg Eibeschitz, who has culled the account from many sources and translated them from various languages (and also contributed an essay of her own deserve out deep gratitude for having produced this volume. Mrs. Anna Eilenberg-Eibeschitz is a survivor of the Lodz Ghetto and of Auschwitz and is the author of two biographical books “Breaking my Silence” and the recently published “Sisters in the Storm.” Her large work on the Lodz Ghetto will appear in the near future.
The Jewish Press, Friday, November 27, 1992