Sanctuary in Auschwitz

A story to commemorate Yom Hashoah (27th of Nisan 5768 - Friday, 2 May 2008), from JPost.com, Apr 29, 2008, by MENACHEM Z. ROSENSAFT, a New York lawyer, president of Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan and founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors:

... sometimes, my mind drifts backward in time to other synagogues, other sanctuaries that I can only imagine.

...At the end of August [1943], my father, Josef Rosensaft, was deported ...to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In mid-October 1943, during Succot, my father smuggled a tiny apple into the Birkenau barrack where the inmates had gathered to pray so that the highly respected Rabbi of Zawiercie, known as the Zawiercier Rov, could recite the Kiddush blessings. Throughout the prayers, my father recalled, the aged Rov stared at the apple, obviously conflicted.

At the end of the clandestine service, he picked up the apple and said, in Yiddish, almost to himself, "In iber dem zol ikh itzt zogn, 've-akhalta ve-savata u-verakhta et Hashem Elohekha...' (And over this, I should now say, 'And you will eat, and you will be satisfied, and you will bless your God...').

"Kh'vel nisht essen (I will not eat)," he went on, "veil ikh vel nisht zat sein (because I will not be satisfied), un ikh vill nisht bentchn (and I refuse to say the Grace After Meals)." And with that, he put down the apple and turned away.

The rabbi never lost his faith in God. Like the hassidic master, Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, however, he was profoundly, desperately angry with Him, and this anger caused him to confront God from the innermost depths of his being.

One evening around the same time, my father and a group of Jews from Zawiercie were sitting in their barrack when the Zawiercier Rov suddenly said, again in Yiddish, "You know, der Ribboine shel-oilem ken zein a ligner" (the Master of the Universe can be a liar). Asked how this could possibly be, the rabbi explained, "If God were to open His window now and look down and see us here, He would immediately look away and say, 'Ikh hob dos nisht geton'" (I did not do this) - and that, he said, would be the lie.

THE FOLLOWING year....Millions of European Jews had already perished. Thousands were dying daily. It was the most unlikely setting for prayer and devotion to God. And yet that night, the Jewish kapo in charge of Block 11 wanted my father to conduct the Yom Kippur service. Half-naked, emaciated, starved, my father chanted Kol Nidre from memory in the Death Block of Auschwitz, and led the prayers there that evening and the following day for his fellow prisoners. As a reward, the kapo gave my father and the other inmates of Block 11 an extra bowl of soup to break the fast.

A barrack in Birkenau during Succot, 1943, and Block 11 in Auschwitz on Yom Kippur, 1944, became synagogues for a few hours, sanctuaries for Jews, many about to die, fleeting refuges from horror and agony, where my father and the Zawiercier Rov simultaneously reached out to and defied God.

AT THE outset of the 21st century, Jews throughout the world are blessed to be able to gather and pray publicly in comfort and safety.

Still, we should remind ourselves every once in a while, as we sit in our elegant synagogues, that the essence of our identities and of our prayers emanate from deep within our souls.

I would like to believe that there are moments when my prayers, our prayers, transcend the years to merge with those that rose out of Block 11 and a Birkenau barrack, and that together they somehow reach their destination. [Amen - SL]