Va'era - 75 Years
It’s a
Shabbat afternoon on the 13th Shevat, only two days before Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees.
It is
3.00 pm
The sky is
a nondescript grey and the ground visibly muddy. It has obviously been raining
recently.
This sounds
like an ordinary January day.
In Jewish
synagogues around the world, the Parsha (Weekly Portion) of Beshalach which recalls the Exodus from
Egypt and the splitting of the Sea of Reeds (Yam Suf) has been recited a few
hours earlier.
Except,
this isn't your "average Shabbat in January", it is a date that has ingrained
itself into the annals of world history.
The date is
27th January 1945 - Auschwitz is being liberated.
The descendants
of those Jews who crossed the Yam Suf, another group of slaves, are on the
brink of leaving another Hellhole. This one, north-west of Egypt.
3,000 years
after a different, more triumphant Exodus.
Lt.-Col.
Anatoly Shapiro was a highly decorated Soviet Red Army officer and Ukrainian Jew who commanded the 1085th ‘Tarnopol’
Rifle Regiment that liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.
Shapiro was
born in Konstantinograd, Russia on January 18, 1913. He studied engineering in high school
before joining the Red Army in 1935. During the war, Shapiro was decorated for
gallantry and wounded during the battle of Kursk.
On the
morning of the 27 January, Shapiro and his men began their siege of Auschwitz
and met heavy resistance.
After
advancing across the Sola River, Shapiro gave the order to enter the camp. By
then most of the prisoners had been sent on a death march toward Germany.
The
soldiers found about 650 corpses inside the barracks and near them — mostly
women who died of exhaustion or were shot by the SS the night before.
In an
interview decades later, Shapiro said:
"I had
seen many innocent people killed. I had seen hanged people. But I was still
unprepared for Auschwitz….The stench was overpowering. It was a women’s
barracks, and there were frozen pools of blood, and dead bodies lay on the
floor.
In a
barracks with the sign Kinder, Shapiro and his men found only two children
alive. They found more in the hospital who mistook him for a Nazi soldier there to take them to the gas chambers and
screamed, “We are not Jews!” They were Jews. “This was the hardest sight of
all,” Shapiro said.
Altogether,
the Soviet troops found at least 1,200 emaciated survivors in Auschwitz and
another 5,800 at Birkenau. They fed them but most could not eat because they
were too malnourished. Ultimately, another soldier said the Red Army managed to
save 2,819 inmates in Red Army Military Hospital 2962.”
(1) The
LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s
house to the land that I will show you. (2) I will make of you a great nation,
And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing.
(3) I will bless those who bless you And curse him that curses you; And all the
families of the earth Shall bless themselves by you.” (4) Abram went forth as
the LORD had commanded him, and Lot went with him.
Abram was 75 years old when he left
Haran.
For many of
the 7,000 ill and dying survivors, the native terrains and fathers' houses from
which they had been forcibly removed were but a distant memory and the land
that they would be shown, did not feature in their eye-lines -
75 years
ago.
The thought
of this decimated nation being great again, let alone blessed was not at the
forefront of their minds.
Why had the monsters who beat them and murdered their
parents not been cursed?
Where were the blessings emanating from the earth's
families?
Where
indeed?
What is 75
years?
Is it just
a number?
A notch on
a walking stick?
What does
the number signify, that we should be marking it so thoughtfully this year?
Does the
number mean any more than the one that preceded it?
At 75 years
old, Abram had witnessed a great deal - maybe not as many startling developments that we have seen in our own lifetimes - but enough to
tell him that this was the opportunity to take a step into the unknown - wherever
that may have led him.
As he stood
on the banks of a river in Haran, north of Israel, or maybe inside a quiet room
in his home, he faced an uncertain future, where belief in Gd was paramount to
the decision he was about to make, one which would affect the rest of his life.
Returning
to our survivors on that day - did they feel the same way?
Did they
know where they would end up - where life would lead them?
How they
could depart from the place that had been their "home" - the death
camp that was the only location that they could verify as being in existence.
Did they
have anywhere else to return to?
In this
week's parsha of Va'era, we read about the suffering of the Israelites under
the cruel leadership of Pharaoh. The punishing, crushing, daily grind under
sadistic Egyptian task masters.
How many
died in those travails?
How many
wondered whether they would ever feel the oxygen of being liberated - yet
knowing, at the same time that, as bad as things were, at least they knew where
they were.
Egypt was
hell, but Egypt was home.
The English
theologian and historian Thomas Fuller is credited as having been the first
person to put to print the phrase (1650):
"It is always darkest just before the
Day dawneth" in his religious travelogue ‘A Pisgah Sight of Palestine
and the Confines Thereof".
Back in
Egypt, the situation for the Israelites was dire. Moshe and Aaron then turn up
and introduce a new narrative into their suffering - the start of the Ten Plagues.
You would
think that one of these would be enough to assure their freedom, but each time, Pharaoh refuses to
change his mind. Egypt is smitten whilst the Israelites continue to suffer the
torments of their slavery.
Whilst Europe was being liberated post D-Day, the Nazis were accelerating the slaughter - right until the night before Auschwitz was captured.
Yet - yet,
chinks of light, albeit of a minuscule quantity are starting to break through
the darkness (although that's the 9th plague and we read about it next
week!).
It is
the darkest hour and 75 years ago, as our people stood (if they could) and
gazed weakly at the Soviet liberators, they must have known that, at least now,
they had the option to make that move. Even in their darkest hour.
Just like
the Israelites - even when all hope seemed to vanish, the survivors refused to capitulate.
Like Abram,
our ancestor, they manoeuvred their bodies, reconnected with their souls and did everything they could to start afresh in
the lands that they would travel to – returning to Germany, coming to the UK as
‘The Boys’ or taking the boat to America to start their lives anew.
For many,
the fledgling state of Israel, not yet formed, not yet an entity but doing what
it could to bring them in by the thousands – was the only option they would
consider and another Exodus awaited them -
in 1947 and the famous boat’s enforced return to Germany being a key
factor in the events leading to the United Nations’ partition vote in November
of that year.
(1) The
LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s
house to the land that I will show you. (2) I will make of you a great nation,
And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing.
And 75
years later, here we are. In our native locations, whether in Israel or the UK,
America or dare I say it, Germany. We have become a great nation again. We have
been blessed, we are known throughout the world and there are some who do bless
us.
75 years
after the gates of Auschwitz were pried open.
In
Gematria, the number 75 is represented by the letters ע
and ה
Together,
they form the acronym עה which represents the phrase עליו השלום
"may peace be upon him" the blessing we use when remembering
someone who has passed away.
On this
anniversary, let us remember the people we lost in Auschwitz and the entire Six Million souls and may peace
be upon them – עליהם השלום
After 75
years, we have a duty to remember them, through our actions and the
contributions we will continue to make, both within the Nation of Israel and to
our Gentile neighbours - to further the commandment that Gd gave to Abram three
millennia ago. Let them bless us and bring to fruition Gd’s promise to him.
May Gd also
give us the strength, the chizuk to grow from strength the strength and remind
us that our future and past and inexorably linked, both with the subsequent 75 earthly
trips around the sun and many, many more in the future.
Shabbat
Shalom.
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