Chapter 30: Such Tsuris.

Neukölln, Berlin.

September 1944.

It was, by most accounts, a fairly typical day for the Jewish women enslaved at the Krupp factory. Up at 4am, a small mouthful of bread, and then twelve hours of hard labor ahead of them.

If anyone had bothered to pay attention to the women, though, they might have noticed that a few of them were extra attentive today. Perhaps they would have even caught a conspiratorial glance or two exchanged.

The date was September 26, 1944. Or, as Dora and her bunkmates knew it: 10 Tishrei, 5705 – Yom Kippur. Several days earlier, a few of the women began spreading word that the Day of Atonement, the most important religious holiday for Jews, was coming. They were working to organize a service, of sorts, in the barracks after the work day for anyone who wanted to attend.

I suppose that means I’m 19 now, Dora observed dryly. Born on 2 Tishrei in 1925, Rosh Hashanah, her family always used the Hebrew calendar date for her birthday, celebrating it on the Jewish New Year, just 8 days before Yom Kippur. Earlier in their captivity, learning that she’d missed her birthday might have incited some sadness over the happy family memories that could never be enjoyed again, but, five years in, she was too numb to wallow.

At any rate, one of the other girls in their bunk room needled Sala until she agreed to go, so Dora had passively decided to follow suit. What else am I going to do?

She hoped that the makeshift Yom Kippur service might provide Sala with some semblance of comfort. Ever since they were forced to part with their father at Auschwitz, Sala had been in a deep depression. There’d been more than one occasion, even here at Krupp, when Sala’s despair seemed so insurmountable, Dora wondered if it was even worth trying to pull her out of its abyss. Neither Dora nor Sala had done much crying at the death camp, where their main focus had been trying to survive the next hour. Here, though, it was common to hear gentle sobs late into the night, including from her own bedmate. Fear of the gas chambers had distracted them from contemplating the full scale of what they’d lost: everything. Now that their brains’ survival mechanisms had earned a small reprieve, their minds were free to wallow in darker places.

Mútti left an apple on Sala’s seat that morning, which Dora was grateful to see her sister eat later that day. Typically, Yom Kippur included a grueling 25-hour fast, but that was the last thing that Sala needed. Most women, she realized, were eating their thin soup as they sat down at the long dinner tables that evening. God, no doubt, can forgive us for breaking fast early when we’ve been slowly starving to death.

It was late by the time they began their service. While the guards weren’t as strict (or bloodthirsty) at the Krupp factory as they were in Birkenau, the women were certain that nothing good would come of being out of their beds after curfew.

Most of the women there had grown up attending shul, especially for the all-important High Holidays, but the Yom Kippur service was long and the memory was short. They didn’t have prayer books or a Rabbi, so they did the best they could from memory. Three women, perhaps a little older than the bulk of attendees, served as impromptu cantors, leading prayers, songs, and poignant reflections on where they were marking this day.

Dora’s mind sobered as it wandered back to the last Yom Kippur that her whole family was alive: the day that Nazis burned the Brzeziny synagogue. They’d also humiliated Rabbi Borenstajn that day, burning off his beard and beating him in front of his own congregation on the holiest day of the Jewish year. A flame of anger rose inside Dora’s heart.

The women launched into a rendition of Eleh Ezkera, “These I Will Remember,” a poem frequently used during the spiritual apex of the Yom Kippur service.

אֵֽלֶּה אֶזְכְּרָה

These [martyrs] I will remember

וְנַפְשִׁי עָלַי אֶשְׁפְּכָה. כִּי בְלָעֽוּנוּ זֵדִים כְּעֻגָה בְּלִי הֲפוּכָה. כִּי בִימֵי הַשָּׂר לֹא עָלְתָה אֲרוּכָה. לַעֲשָׂרָה הֲרוּגֵי מְלוּכָה: 

and pour out my soul within me. For wicked people have swallowed us, like a cake, unturned, [not fully baked] for during the days of Caeser there was no remedy [reprieve] for the ten martyrs, doomed to death by the [Roman] government.^[i]

Dora felt a visceral reaction to these words. The poem described the violent executions of ten important Jewish sages, whom the Roman authorities perceived as threats to their power. No, not just executed, Dora thought, her cheeks getting hot, but tortured. Humiliated. For their Jewish beliefs.

There was one woman who was now leading the recitation of the poem. Everyone listened with rapt attention as she forged ahead, telling of Rabbi Shimon, who was the first to die:

לִשְׁפֹּךְ דָּמוֹ מִהֵר כְּשׁוֹר פָּר. וּכְשֶׁנֶּחְתַּךְ רֹאשׁוֹ נְטָלוֹ רַבִּי יִשְׁמָעֵאל וְצָרַח עָלָיו בְּקוֹל מַר כַּשּׁוֹפָר. אֵי הַלָּשׁוֹן הַמְמַהֶֽרֶת לְהוֹרוֹת בְּאִמְרֵי שְׁפָר. בַּעֲו‍ֹנוֹת אֵיךְ עַתָּה לוֹחֶֽכֶת אֶת הֶעָפָר: 

“[The executioner] hastened to shed [Shimon’s] blood as though it was that of an ox. When his head was severed R’Yishmael picked it up and wept over it with a bitter voice, like the sound of a shofar. How could such a tongue, which so eagerly taught words of Torah, because of [our] iniquities now lick the dust.”

A solitary tear slid silently down Dora’s cheek. It held grief, sadness – yes – but so much more. Anger. Rage. Will this finally be the end of Jews? she wondered. What have Jews ever done to deserve the world’s hatred? This violence? She thought of Rabbi Borenstajn again. Thousands of years after the deaths of the ten martyrs, and still Jewish sages are being treated the same, and by an enemy that claims moral superiority over those they persecute, enslave, and murder.

On this holiest of days, Eleh Ezkera is meant to sanctify these ten martyrs, searing them into the minds of all Jews, reminding them of the holiness of Jewish wisdom, values, and life, even in the face of persecution. We should all be as brave and upright at these sages, Dora had always understood this poem to mean.

Now, though, everything was different. Should she revere her lost family members – her parents, siblings, husband, niece and nephew, to say nothing of the many cousins and friends whom she knew were probably lost to her forever? Do they deserve the praise of poets: to be remembered by Jews everywhere on Yom Kippur? What does that matter, though, if no one is left to remember their names? To share the stories of their executions? The last words? Lost dreams? Where is the glory of martyrdom if there are no Jews left alive to sanctify their legacy?

Looking around, Dora could see her own emotions reflected, in various ways, on the faces of her fellow prisoners. Some wept openly. Others sat shock still, their heaving chests the only sign of their inner turmoil. Some, she suspected, were praying. Praying to whom, she wondered, for what? The prayer went on:

שַׂרְפֵי מַֽעְלָה צָעֲקוּ בְמָרָה. זוֹ תוֹרָה וְזוֹ שְׂכָרָהּ. עוֹטֶה כַּשַּׂלְמָה אוֹרָה. אוֹיֵב מְנָאֵץ שִׁמְךָ הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא. וּמְחָרֵף וּמְגַדֵּף עַל דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה: 

“The angels above cried out bitterly Is this the reward for Torah, God Almighty, Creator of light? Behold how the enemy blasphemes Your great and awesome Name, and scorns and ridicules the words of the Torah.”

Did the angels cry out every time the SS beat an old man to death? Whenever a guard ripped a baby from its mother’s arms and smashed its head against the ground in front of her? Did they try to bargain with God over the masses sent to the crematoria? A woman behind Dora began weeping bitterly into her hands as she rocked back and forth. Though Dora couldn’t remember her name, she felt a deep kinship with this woman: this stranger-but-not-a-stranger whose experiences, no doubt, were just another version of Dora’s. Hunger. Loss. Pain. Where are the angels trying to intervene on her behalf? Where are the Angels at Auschwitz? Their enemy was so evil, yet they’d been allowed to persist in their murderous machinations for years. There’d been times in the past when Dora had felt despair over the blind eye the world seemed to be turning to the plight of Europe’s Jews. Now, though, all she felt was rage.

קוֹנְנוּ עַם לֹא אַלְמָן. כִּי עַל דָּבָר מוּעָט נִשְׁפַּךְ דָּמָן. לְקַדֵּשׁ שֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם מָסְרוּ עַצְמָן. בַּהֲרִיגַת רַבִּי חוּצְפִּית הַמְּתֻרְגְּמָן: 

“Mourn, oh people who are not forsaken, for over insignificant matters was their blood spilt. To sanctify the Name of God they sacrificed their lives...”

The voice of their barrack cantor was lower now than when she’d begun, but it had a hard intensity to it that had the women on the edge of their seats, almost like children listening to an elder sibling tell a ghost story. At some point, Dora had let go of Sala’s hand. She hardly registered that they were clenched into tight fists. She was too absorbed with the storyteller.

“Mourn, oh people who are not forsaken,” she’d practically whispered, her voice a pained rasp. And just who would that be, Dora wondered, haven’t we all been forsaken? Would there even be any Jews left alive to mourn the dead: to remember their names? Will any of us make it? Dora glanced around the room, her eyes wildly jumping from face to face. So much pain was present on their visages: so much suffering. Is it up to us to mourn and remember? We who are barely alive?

זֹאת קְרָאַֽתְנוּ וְסִפַּרְנוּ בְּשִׁנּוּן. וְשָׁפַֽכְנוּ לֵב שָׁפוּל וְאָנוּן. מִמָּרוֹם הַסְכֵּת תַּחֲנוּן. יְהֹוָה יְהֹוָה אֵל רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן: 

“All this happened to us and we tell it over again. We pour out [our] hearts of grief and depression. Hear our supplication from above Adonoy, Adonoy, Almighty, Merciful and Gracious.”

Merciful, Dora thought, bitterness infusing her heart. Gracious. What kind of a god could let this happen to his people – his chosen ones, if you believed the Rabbis – not just once, but over and over again throughout history. Such unimaginable tsuris. What did any of us do to deserve this misery?

When she was a girl in school, Dora’s Jewish faith meant so much to her. Bes Yaakov was her second home; not just because of the friends she made, but for the lessons she learned about living a faith-filled Jewish life. The prayers, Torah, and mitzvot she learned there guided her whole life while also serving as a point of connection to her ancestors and all the Jews who’d come before her. Somewhere in the back of her mind was a vaguely-formed idea that, hearing this poem about other persecuted Jews should have made her feel even more connected to her Jewishness. Instead, she felt more alone than ever. Beyond that, she felt angry. Furious: at the Germans, at the Poles, at the world for abandoning them, and – she finally admitted to herself – at God. Or is it my fault for believing in a god in the first place?

Dora didn’t know if she believed in God anymore. Her grief, anger, and feeling of abandonment were so extreme that, frankly, she didn’t have the energy to contemplate the idea of a divine presence. The only prayer in her heart that night – made to a deity she doubted – was one for vengeance. Make them pay for this, she thought, no matter what happens to me, to us, please let us godforsaken Jews get our revenge on the people who’ve done this.

Yom Kippur is the day when Jews traditionally contemplate and repent for their own shortcomings. For this first time in her life, Dora knew that she had no need to pray for atonement. Her hands were clean of the blood of her people. She could only hope that the Allies or Soviets would arrive, if not in time to save the women in this room, then, at the very least, to spill the blood of the Nazis as payment for their sins.

“I was praying too,” Dora would say years later of this Yom Kippur service. “But if I believed? This is a different story.”[ii]

[i] “Musaf for Yom Kippur, The Ten Martyrs,” Sefaria.org. All subsequent quotes come from this source, as well.

[ii] Langsam, Shoah Foundation interview, 1996.