Spirit of Passover Triumphs

 

When the Jewish holiday of Passover comes around I think of the holiday and its rituals. For thousands of years Jews have marked the event of the exodus from Egypt with a meal called the Seder. Unleavened bread, called matzoh, is eaten. This food was eaten during the exodus from Egypt. By eating matzoh Jews remember God’s kindness.

 

Eating matzoh has not always been easy. Let me share some experiences I have heard from my teachers who were World War II Holocaust survivors.

 

Far away in Slovakia the Passover Seder was celebrated in a most humble fashion. Simcha Bunem Unsdorfer had been brought to the Auschwitz death camp. There the SS officers killed thousands of men, women and children daily. Simcha knew that there were only two ways to leave the death camp. One was through the chimney of the ovens after being gassed and burned. A better way was to find work for the German war effort.

 

One day a rumor was spread. The German military factories were bombed and new parts for guns and airplanes were needed. The Germans built factories in hidden areas. They used Jews to run their factories and worked them to death. Replacements for the poor workers were the men found in the death camps who strong enough to work.

 

One such camp, “Nieder-Orschel,” was established to produce parts for building wings for the Luftwafte’s fighter aircraft. Simcha and some Slovakian Jews were taken from Auschwitz to this camp. The men were forced to work 18-hour shifts and were given barely enough food to survive. The food rations were terrible but the lice and diseases were worse. Imagine wearing the same clothing for months. As bad as it was, the men felt that this was infinitely better than being gassed and burned in the crematoriums.

 

When the Passover season came the men gathered around and spoke of their need to have Passover matzoh. In the Nieder–Orschel factory there were workers who were not prisoners. They were civilian workers who went home nightly.

 

Simcha had made friends with one Christian known as Meister Meyer, a civilized worker. “I need a 1/2 pound of flour,” said Simcha to Meister Meyer.

 

“What? Have you lost your mind?” Exclaimed Meyer. “What do you need the flour for?”

 

“The holiday of Passover is here and I need to bake matzoh,” answered Simcha.

 

Meister Meyer muttered to himself, “How can Jews think of matzoh when their God has forsaken them to the death camps?”

 

Since Simcha was very determined to have his way, Meister Meyer brought him a little bag of flour. “We shall not see each other any more. Here is the flour. May your God protect you.”

 

That night Simcha and a few friends sneaked out of the barracks and went into the smithy’s shop. They worked feverishly with the bellows until they got a small fire going. Finding a small, dirty tin plate, they cleaned it as best as possible and used it as a platter.

 

In a half hour three tiny, round matzoh were ready.

 

That night, March 28, 1945, the small group held their Seder. They couldn’t find anything as satisfying in their lives as eating the small matzohs in this godforsaken death camp. Simcha survived the death camp and shared his experience in a personal memoir called The Yellow Star.

 

Life in the ghettos under Nazi Germany was one long nightmare. Religious Jews kept as many of their customs as possible. When Passover arrived, matzoh had to be baked. They would do anything to bake their cherished unleavened bread.

 

Before the Nazi occupation Shimon Cohen was the head baker of his city. Shimon wanted to provide the Jews with matzoh. A few days before the holiday Shimon organized a group of young men and asked them if they were willing to give up their lives for the performance of a mitzvah, the commandment, to bake matzoh. In great secrecy they bartered old clothes for flour. They sneaked into an old bakery and heated up the oven to bake matzoh. Forgetting the grave danger surrounding him and his friends, Shimon became so excited with the baking that he began to sing. His soul felt like bursting. He sang louder and louder. “As the Israelites went out of Egypt,” went the song.

 

Suddenly a shout was heard. The door of the bakery was smashed down. In entered the Gestapo leader.

 

“Cursed Jews, what’s happening here?”

Before they could answer, the Gestapo officers swung their batons and rifles onto the heads of the defenseless Jews.

 

“Your singing gave you away. Your fate is sealed. We will put you against the bakery wall and shoot you!”

 

Shimon, the initiator of the baking said, “You cannot frighten me. Tomorrow is the Jewish holiday of Passover and I was baking matzoh in honor of the holiday.”

 

The commander began screaming like an animal in pain, “typical Jewish audacity, you will be killed by us. We will not kill you by bullets, as we don’t want to waste the bullets. Rather, we will club you to death.”

 

A group of sneering Nazi Gestapo men descended on poor Shimon and beat him mercilessly, killing him.

 

That night the Seder was held in the poor Jewish homes in the ghetto but there was no matzoh to be found. Little innocent children gathered the bits of the matzoh left in the bakery for the Seder meal. They wanted to prove to themselves that nothing would stop their belief in God.

 

The little matzoh bits were displayed on the Seder table to symbolize the ritual matzoh.

 

Yes, Shimon Cohen had died a hero’s death. The ghetto remembered his heroism for a long time. They called him “the modern day Paschal sacrifice.”

 

In a Polish death camp an old rabbi recited the Hagaddah, the story of the exodus, from memory. Non–Jewish Polish officers sat around him. A young student translated the rabbi’s words.

 

“All people are created in the image of the Almighty. Only murderers erase the divine image from His face. We all are brothers in trouble.”

 

As the Jews and the Poles sat huddled together, they prayed that the long night of persecution would come to an end. This would only happen if they didn’t lose their divine image.

 

In the above stories, we can see how the spirits of people can lift them higher than their situation. They can do anything, anywhere and at any time.

 

This message is for all the people on Earth, as there is no monopoly on the spirit of life.

 

The holiday of Passover is a lesson to all nations of the world. We all may be exposed to evil people but we don’t have to become like them. We can liberate ourselves by remembering our divine spirit and experience freedom.

 

Tonight  Jews the world over will celebrate the holiday of Passover.

Make sure you join them.