Nazi officials in attendance at the opening of "The Eternal Jew" exhibition in Munich, view a segment entitled, "Jewish dress was a warning against racial defilement." To the left is a segment entitled, "Usury and the fencing of goods were always their privilege."

Barbara Tuchman, in her book, A Distant Mirror, has an excellent chapter about the difficulties of the Church during the “calamitous” Middle Ages. In short, the core problem was that the Church set up ideals that had no relationship with reality.

For example, the Church said celibacy was an ideal. The higher person needs no sexual life whatsoever, it claimed. It was very hard to sell that, especially to the medieval world, which was much more filled with licentiousness than many people realize.

The Church was always on the side of peace. The ideal is to “turn the other cheek” and “the meek shall inherit the face of the Earth.” Yet, the Pope had the largest standing army in Europe. The Church rarely, if ever, turned the other cheek. (It was your cheek that had to turn, not theirs.)

This disparity between the ideal and the real was not lost upon the populace. In it lay the seeds of the eventual destruction of the Church.

One of the unrealistic ideals had a direct impact upon the Jews: a strict ban against taking interest. In a purely agrarian economic system it is conceivable to exist without charging interest. However, once Europe discovered that money could be printed it changed the economy of Europe forever, and it was no longer possible to run a sophisticated commercial system without interest.

It was Marco Polo who brought the idea of paper money back from the Far East to Europe. Indeed, paper money is one of the greatest discoveries in the history of civilization. Until then, one had to carry his money around with him — and there was a limit how much one could carry. There were only so many cows and sheep, gold and silver, one could bring with him to the market. However, when paper was used to represent wealth it was literally a life-changing invention. It was nothing less than the turning point of the economic system of the Western world.

A businessman once described economics as follows: There is one box that gets shipped around the world, one person selling it and another buying it. Then the buyer ships it to the next location and becomes a seller, making a profit. If anyone stops the box and opens it the business is finished. You have to keep it moving.

To a certain extent that describes modern economics. The perception of value is every bit as important – even more important – than the actuality. It is what keeps the box moving.

Moving the box creates buyers and sellers — and buyers rely on borrowing money. In a system that forbids lending on interest the box does not move.

And the Catholic Church forbade usury. Without the ability to lend with interest there would be no trade, no merchandise, no commerce.

That was where the Jew came in and solved the problem for Christian Europe. Both the Church and the nobleman needed an intermediary. Since the Jew was going straight to Hell anyway, according to Church doctrine, why not use him while he was on this Earth.

Consequently, the nobleman lent money to the Jew at 25% interest and the Jew in turn lent it to the merchants or common people at 33-40% interests, which were normal rates in the Middle Ages.

It was a catch-22, however. The non-Jews forced the Jews into being the middlemen in usurious contracts, but since it was against the law the Jews could always be prosecuted for doing so. Inevitably, there would be kings who spent more than they could get and who were always borrowing. They also needed Jews to borrow from. When the time came to call a moratorium on one’s debts, and one did not have the money, an easy solution was to kick the Jews out or kill them.

That happened with regularity. Spain was the place where this pattern first took form.

Out of the suffering of the Bar Kochba holocaust Jewish leaders emerged who made it possible for the Jewish people to survive into the long night of exile.

After the demise of Bar Kochba the Jews prepared themselves for a long exile. Indeed, had Hadrian lived longer there is no telling what would have happened with the Jewish people. However, in 141 CE he died and was succeeded by someone diametrically opposite him, a kind and gentle person called Antoninus Pius.

Had the decrees and attitude of Hadrian continued unabated with his successors then the Jews may never have survived.

The Enigmatic Rabbi Meir

Jewish history – any history – is a history of people. The dates, places and events are only to give Social Studies teachers a chance to mark a test paper. They do not tell the story of the world. The story of the world – the real story – is the story of people. Even more so the story of the Jewish world.

Rabbi Meir, disciple of Rabbi Akiva and leader after his death, was one of the most enigmatic figures in Jewish history. We do not even know his real name. The Talmud says that his name was Rabbi Nehorai or Rabbi Nehemiah. The reason he was called Meir is because the Hebrew word “Meir” means to emit light; he brought a great deal of light to the rabbis. In truth, we do not know what his real name was. Indeed, he exists in a veil of anonymity.

Jewish tradition tells us that he was descended from non-Jews (as was Rabbi Akiva). As we discussed previously, there was a tremendous influx of Jewish converts during these few centuries when Rome was at her mightiest. The best of the non-Jewish world came into Judaism. Therefore, it is not surprising that in very short period of time many of the great leaders of the Jewish world were either converts or the descendants of converts.

Rabbi Meir was the greatest man of his generation, the Talmud tells us. He formed the bridge from this post-Holocaust generation, so to speak, to the next generation, the generation of Rabbi Judah the Prince, redactor of the Mishnah.

The Talmud said that there was no one equal to Rabbi Meir in Torah knowledge. Nevertheless, the law does not follow his opinion because no one could understand it. He was too great to comprehend. Too deep.

The Rabbi who became an Agnostic

Rabbi Meir was the student of another enigmatic personality mentioned in the Talmud, Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah, the only great man of the Talmud to lose his faith. The Talmud offers several stories in an attempt to explain it.

Once he saw a man crawl out on the limb of a tree to fulfill the commandment of sending away the mother bird from the nest before taking the egg, which the Torah says is rewarded with “length of days.” However, the man slipped off the limb and died. Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah could not reconcile what he saw. In essence, he was tripped up by the classic question of why do bad things happen to good people.

We survive because we never think about it. We don’t think too much about anything. Therefore, life poses no problems. Of course, sometimes, God forbid, a tragedy occurs with no easy answers. A good, kind person leaves over orphans, God forbid. How does one justify that?

Of course, God is righteous. It’s just that it does not make sense to us. We cannot figure Him out.

Another story about Elisha ben Abuyah is that he saw the Romans behead his teacher, Rabbi Chutzpis, who was known as the man of the golden tongue. Rabbi Chutzpis was a great orator. When Elisha ben Abuyah saw his tongue roll in the dust he cracked. How could that happen to a man whose tongue only spoke Torah?

In short, Elisha ben Abuyah saw Auschwitz and he could not bear it.

After he abandoned Judaism the rabbis gave him a name, “Acher,” which means, “Another.” He was no long Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah they used to know. He became a different person.

Most of the rabbis avoided him because he was a bad influence, but But Rabbi Meir used to learn Torah with him. When they asked Rabbi Meir how he could do that he answered, “I ate the inside of the fruit and threw away the peel.”

Redeeming Acher

The Talmud records incredible conversations between Rabbi Meir and Acher. They were once walking on the Sabbath together and reached the boundary beyond which an observant Jew was allowed to walk. Acher said to Rabbi Meir, “Return back.”

“My teacher,” Rabbi Meir replied, “you also turn back.” He was alluding to more than just literally turning around and not going past the physical boundary. He was telling him to repent, to come back to his people, to God, to his senses.

Acher replied, “But I heard from a heavenly voice say that even the most wayward Jews can come back to God – except from Elisha ben Abuyah.”

He felt he was doomed. As an aside, many commentators say that while the heavenly voice he heard was real it was actually a test to see if he would return for the purest of reasons, without expectation of acceptance or reward. That would have made up for his mistakes.

In any event, Rabbi Meir remained a fierce defender of his teacher until the end. When Elisha ben Abuyah died Rabbi Meir believed he had repented. However, when they buried him they saw fire coming out of his grave, which was obviously a bad sign.

Rabbi Meir spread his tallis (prayer shawl) over the grave and prayed on his teacher’s behalf. In essence, he noted how the world is night; it is black. There are always unanswered questions. It contains cruelties that cannot be explained. Terrible things happen in the night called this world. In the night we have no answers. Nevertheless, in the morning, when the sun rises – in the World to Come – we will see things clearly, Rabbi Meir added.

Then Rabbi Meir remarked, “If God will redeem you, my teacher, good. If not, however, then I will redeem you.”

This remarkable statement is the Talmud’s way to teaching that the actions of one’s disciples affect the soul of the teacher even after it has departed this world. In other words, even if the person’s deeds are not enough to earn redemption on their own it can be won for him, so to speak, when the deeds of his disciples (or children) are added to the equation.

The Master of the Miracle

Rabbi Meir is sometimes referred to in the Talmud as Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess. Baal HaNess means, “Master of the Miracle.” The story behind that appendage to his name is told in the Talmud.

After the destruction of Beitar and the terrible decrees of Hadrian ten great sages were executed. One was Rabbi Meir’s father-in-law, Rabbi Hannaniah ben Tradyon, who was wrapped in a Torah scroll and burned alive. As part of the attempt to destroy the Jewish scholars and their families, the Romans took the daughter of Rabbi Hannaniah ben Tradyon and impressed into service in a house of ill-repute.

At the urging of his wife, Beruriah, Rabbi Meir went to see what he could do to redeem her. He discovered where the Romans had placed her, disguised himself as a patron and asked specifically for her. She did not recognize him and made all sorts of excuses why she would be unable to accommodate him. Rabbi Meir saw from that that spiritually she had not been compromised. Then he told her who he was and promised to get her out.

This was a consistent trait in Rabbi Meir. He was not fazed by things. If he could tell his teacher that he would get him out of hell into heaven, then he could take his sister-in-law out of the brothel.

He found the Roman keeper of the house and offered him a bribe to release the girl into his custody. In the strange logic of Roman “morality” the keeper told him that he would be happy to sell him the girl but that the Romans kept count and if one of them was missing he would lose his life. It was not worth the money.

Rabbi Meir told him that he would give him a secret incantation that would protect him. The Roman did not believe him. He had two very large ferocious guard dogs and Rabbi Meir offered to prove it to him with the dogs. Let the dogs loose on him, Rabbi Meir offered. The Roman was happy to accommodate him.

As the dogs leaped at him Rabbi Meir said, “God of Meir, answer me!” We have to understand who Rabbi Meir was and how real God was to him. The dogs fell away from him. Rabbi Meir told him the Roman that if the authorities came for him he should say those words, “God of Meir, answer me!” The Roman took the money and Rabbi Meir took his sister-in-law.

Indeed, one day the Romans came to the keeper and took inventory. When they found one missing they took him away to be executed. Then he said, “God of Meir, answer me!” Suddenly, all of the guards fell away and he escaped. He converted and became a Jew.

After that incident became public people began calling Rabbi Meir, “Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess.” That is why there is a famous charity today called the charity of “Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess.” On the back of the charity box is the famous words, “God of Meir, answer me!” The idea is that if you put money in the box and say the words, “God of Meir, answer me!” you can look forward to miracles. This charity began in the 18^th century and came to have such a mass appeal that it is still going strong today.

A World Ebbing Away

Rabbi Meir was married to one of the great women of the Talmud, one of the great women of all time: Beruriah. The Talmud tells us that when Rabbi Meir could not deliver the lecture in synagogue she put up a curtain and said it over.

Yet, these two incomparably great people had a very hard life together, a life of terrible tragedies – one upon the other. They had children who died. They went into exile. They had misunderstandings between themselves. According to some versions, she committed suicide because of a misunderstanding.

Left alone, Rabbi Meir departed the Holy Land and died broken on the coast of Turkey in Asia Minor. His last words were, “Bury me by the seashore, because the waters that brush the coast this land are the waters that brush the Holy Land, and those who are attached to something that is holy are holy.”

There is a legend that Rabbi Meir is buried in Tiberias. However, that is probably not true, although it makes for good tourism. The Talmud, however, tells us that he was buried in Turkey.

In short, stories of the generation that experienced the “Holocaust” of Roman wrath during Bar Kochba’s defeat contain all the human problems imaginable. Simultaneously, it produced leaders for all time. These were the people who constructed the basic floor for Jewish life after the loss of independence.

Like Rabbi Meir who died on the shores of the Mediterranean, this generation was connected to and formed a bridge from a world ebbing away to a new world with new challenges flowing inward. Their connection is what made it possible for the Jewish people to survive its exile.

Hitler at a 1914 rally celebrating the outbreak of World War I

Among the tragic events that occurred in this mourning period of the Jewish calendar was the outbreak of World War I. Naively termed the “Great War,” it was the catalyst for World War II, the Holocaust, and all the other murderous events that would follow in the 20th century. It was brought about by catastrophic miscalculations of the great European powers, a combination of reckless politicians, stupid generals, and strong jingoist fervor. Yet when it first broke out, people all over Europe cheered – in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow, St. Petersburg. Here is a picture of a cheering crowd with Hitler himself right in the middle of it. The First World War was going to raise the art school reject out of his anonymity.

The war was a total war and therefore a total disaster. But in a perverse and not too surprising twist of events, the Jewish population of Europe suffered most. As individuals, the Jews fought in the armies of all sides, becoming super-patriots in their respective countries, determined to prove that they really “belonged.” This was especially true of German Jewry. Over 12,000 Jews died fighting for the “Vaterland.” Their patriotism and sacrifice would turn to ashes, literally, within twenty years.

German Jewish soldiers fighting for “der Vaterland". Picture courtesy of Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of the Culture and History of German-Speaking Jewry

But in spite of their super-patriotism, the Jews in Germany were subject to accusations of disloyalty. In 1916, the German General Staff ordered a census of all Jewish soldiers in the army to determine how many actually served on the front line. The fabricated census was publicized with great fanfare, intimating that the Jews were shirking their duty. The actual results showed that 80% of all Jewish soldiers served on the front lines, far higher than the general population, but this was never released to the general public.

Anti-Semitism had been virulent in Germany even before World War I. Germany’s subsequent defeat only served to exacerbate it. The stage was already set for the “Jewish-led-stab-in-the-back” betrayal theory that brought Hitler to power.

For the Jews in Eastern Europe, the war also brought unmitigated tragedy. A quarter million died in battle, and over a million became refugees because the Czar accused them of being German collaborators, forced them to leave their homes, and settle in inland Russia. Because of the Czar’s behavior towards the Jews, many actually welcomed the conquering Germans and Austrians as liberators and benefactors. The Jewish infrastructure in Eastern Europe, socially, economically, culturally and religiously, was almost completely destroyed by the war.

The war also served to radicalize much of Eastern European Jewry’s youth into secularists and Marxists. The yeshivot were scattered, and many of the Chassidic courts and dynasties were decimated. The Bolshevik revolution brought on by the war attempted to destroy the practice of Judaism. The anti-Semitism of the Polish and Lithuanian nationalists became overt and violent. In perfect hindsight, it seems clear that even without the Holocaust, Eastern European Jewish life was on the wane.

As we see in current times, divides within the Jewish world are not easily bridged. But what we must appreciate is that the ideologies that drive them were annealed in the heat of the First World War. The Jewish people are still paying the bill for it.

To learn more about World War I, please see our film, “Faith & Fate, Part II: The Implosion of the World Order“

Jewish inmates of Theriesenstadt, taken by the International Red Cross, June 23, 1944. Copyright, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC

On June 23, 1944, one of the worst charades in history occurred: the Red Cross visited Thereisienstadt, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. According to the testimony of survivors, it was not the only such visit, but as you will see, we have pictures and records of that day. First, however, read the testimony of Mordechai Ansbacher, a survivor and witness:

“Whenever the visitors arrived. . . the whole ghetto would be turned upside down. Certain areas were under absolute curfew, and people living there had to remain indoors because their appearance would be too unsightly. Generally, only those who still preserved a more or less human appearance were allowed to move about outside. A beautification process would be on. Places had to be cleaned and made ship-shape. Houses were painted on the outside and large signboards put up saying, “Central Synagogue,” “Ghetto Theatre,” “Children’s School.”

“They even prepared teams of children in uniforms as if for soccer games. They had a children’s club for such occasions. Ice skating was installed, and ponies were brought in. Children were put into small beds with engraved hearts on the bed, as though in a veritable palace. Rehearsals were held with the children, and they were given food, which the children unfortunately ferociously devoured. They therefore had to repeat the rehearsals because we kept sending them new children each time to get food, so that as many as possible would eat well at least once.”[1]

Listen to the sadism involved here:

“To keep up the pretense and make a profit on the side, the Gestapo would sell prospective deportees apartment condominiums in Thereisenstadt. The newcomers arrived brandishing titled documents, but they were fortunate if they were allocated a plank in an attic of an old fort or a piece of floor in an army hut.” [2]

A scene staged by the Nazis for the International Red Cross inspection of the Theresienstadt ghetto. The people are probably watching a soccer match. Czechoslovakia, June 23, 1944. — Comite International de la Croix Rouge - Copyright, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC

But in spite of all that, the charade worked. Here is the Red Cross report, prepared by Dr. Norbert Masur:

“Thereisienstadt is not a camp in the ordinary sense of the word, but a town inhabited by Jews and governed by them, in which every manner of work is to be done. This type of camp was designed by me and by my old friend Heidrich and was as we intended all camps to be.” [3]

And perhaps the bitterest irony of all is that Thereisienstadt really was the “best” camp, the one with the best survival rate. And perhaps without that charade and the report that resulted from it, something more might have been done to ease the worst crime against humanity in all of history.

[1] Gideon Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem, p. 158

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. 159

IDF soldiers' honor guard for a fallen soldier in the War of Independence

These few weeks are crowded with special days of memory, especially here in Israel. Yom Ha Shoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), Yom Ha Zikaron (Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers), and Yom Ha Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) all come upon us in swift succession. They are really the framework for the Israeli psyche governing our national mood and policies. The rest of the world does not and perhaps cannot understand where we are coming from.

Yom Ha Shoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) has taught us that if someone arises and intends to exterminate the Jewish people as official policy, we will not have any real protectors in the world to defend us. In the past, our erstwhile friends, whether FDR or Churchill, did next to nothing to prevent the Holocaust from occurring. It is unlikely that Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is any more reliable.

The leaders of the world, if they are not latent anti-Semites, are overtly unrealistic. They prefer not to get it. So they conclude that Shiite Iran does not mean what it says when it regularly proclaims our eventual destruction. But Yom Ha Shoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) comes to remind us that reality differs from naïve hopes and ill-thought policies.

The fecklessness of the world in the face of militant Islam, unabating terrorism, and rogue nuclear armed states inspires little confidence here in Israel. We may say “never again,” but deep down in our hearts we know that “again” remains a distinct possibility.

The world wants us to get over the Holocaust while at the same time is creating a scenario that constantly reminds us of its reoccurence. People who are bitten by large dogs do not walk on the same side of the street where Rottweilers are present.

The Jewish people have paid a heavy price for maintaining our little state. Tens of thousands of Jews have been killed and continue to die for its preservation. The Arab world has basically never come to terms with the reality of the existence of the State of Israel. Constant war, mindless terrorism, unceasing incitement, never ending accusations, fabrications and biased UN resolutions have been the daily fare of the State of Israel since its inception.

We can never lose a war, but we are never allowed to win one either. So Yom Ha Zikaron (Memorial Day for Fallen Israeli Soldiers) tragically becomes a regular occurrence in our lives. Golda Meir may have fabulously expressed mourning over the deaths of the Arabs in their struggles against our existence, but the Arabs have never expressed such regrets.

The Ayatollahs of Iran say that they willing to lose fifteen million(!) Iranians in order to eradicate the State of Israel. It is hard to see how one can come to an accommodation with such bloodthirsty, uncaring fanatics whose value for human life, theirs and certainly ours, is so cheap. So Yom Ha Zikaron (Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers) comes to remind us of the real world and the heartbreaking cost that Israel has paid and continues to pay for survival.

Pious platitudes about peace do not change the reality of murderous intent on the ground. We have been down that road too many times in the past to be seduced to go there again.

The miracle of the past century was and remains the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel. Yom Ha Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) has to be viewed in that light. The tragedy is that this miracle, unlike Chanukah and Purim, had no religious leadership that could have cloaked it with the necessary ritual that would have made the day meaningful to all sections of Israeli and Jewish society. Having a barbecue in the park hardly makes it a memorable day, a tradition of observance that can be passed on to later generations.

Those of us who were alive when the state came into being and experienced all the pangs of its establishment are a fast-disappearing breed. The deniers amongst us, certainly in the non-Jewish world, already distort and falsify the story. The victim has become the oppressor and Goliath struts around the world stage as David. Yom Ha Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) should come to remind us of the real story of Jewish heroism and triumph against all odds.

It should also remind the world that even though it is popular and oh so politically correct and progressively noble to damn Israel, in the long run it is very counterproductive to do so. Just ask the Soviet Union! So let us take these days to heart and stand tall for our God and land.

For more on the aftermath of the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel, please see our documentary film Faith and Fate 6: The Miracle of Israel, 1945-1948.

Jewish victims of the einsatzgruppen. Photo courtesy of The History Place.

The most difficult topic certainly in modern Jewish history, if not in all of Jewish history, is the Holocaust. Merely to relate the dry facts cannot in any way do it justice. The questions it raises are so enormous that they defy any meaningful answer, and to a certain extent, we demean the entire subject if we try to give pat answers. On the other hand, it is not a subject that can be ignored. One cannot appreciate the impact of the last seventy years of Jewish life without an understanding of the Holocaust. And since today is Yom Ha’shoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, let us try to delve into it a little.

Hitler and the Nazis were obsessed by the racial theory that all the troubles in the world stemmed from the Jewish people and that the solution to the world’s problems lay in their destruction. By the destruction of the Jewish people, they did not mean assimilation. They meant extermination. And they set about accomplishing it in a fashion unknown in the history of the world until then. The Holocaust remains a grisly monument to the bestial character of man.

The Nazis were meticulous in their “work.” They left over so many records that the Holocaust became the most documented genocide in the history of the world. In contrast, the Turks killed approximately a million and a half Armenians between 1919 and 1923, but it is not documented because the Turks did not keep records. We don’t have records of how many Native Americans were destroyed by the American settlers. But the Nazis kept records, and we have them. As an example, by December 1941, they recorded that 54,696 Jews were killed by the einsatzgruppen, mobile commando units whose specific job was to kill Jews in mass shootings. We’re not talking approximations here. 54,696. [1]

The Nazis didn’t just kill the Jews; they made use of every inch of them. Women’s hair was shaved off and weaved into blankets for Nazi soldiers. Fat from Jews’ bodies was used to make soap. Gold teeth were pulled out to make gold bars for the Reichsbank. 384,000 pairs of men’s shoes were sent to Germany from Auschwitz. 646,000 men’s suits. 184,000 pairs of eyeglasses.[2]

In my opinion, the most frightening thing in Auschwitz is not the gas chambers or the crematoria. It’s a room piled to the ceiling with children’s shoes. That gives you have an idea what the Holocaust was. Shoes. Once worn by real people.

A particularly fiendish part of all this is that the Jews were made to pay for it. When many a Jewish man was taken to the forced labor camps, his wife or mother would later receive a postcard from the German government saying that unfortunately her husband or son died – always of a heart attack – and if she would send the German Postal Authorities three and a half deutsche marks, they’d mail her the ashes.

The amount of cruelty that it takes to do that is a measure of the type of system that was installed here. It’s one thing to kill, but to kill sadistically. Here is a quote taken from Hausner’s account of the Eichmann’s trial: 

“The deportations were coupled with the most cruel tortures to extract money and valuables. Wives were beaten before husbands, children before parents to make them ‘confess’ where their jewelry was hidden. Rubber truncheons, electric current, flogging of soles and palms, sticking needles under the nails were favorite devices of the Hungarian police, under the general direction of Krumey and Wisliceny. . . An 84-year-old mother of a distinguished citizen had been taken from the operating table while having her foot amputated for diabetes and thrown straight into the boxcar. This maltreatment so embittered her son that he whipped out a revolver to shoot himself. The weapon was knocked aside, but it fired anyway and blew off half his face. He also was thrown into the boxcar, unbandaged, after his mother.”[3]

This system was based upon the fact that the Jews could be transported all over Europe by rail transport. It’s just mind-boggling that in the midst of a war that Germany was losing, when transportation of materials and men and the entire infrastructure of the war depended upon good rail connections, the Nazis thought nothing of diverting a great number of locomotives, freight cars, and railway lines to feed places like Auschwitz day in and day out. And it’s equally mind-boggling that the rail lines that brought people to Auschwitz were the only ones the Allies did not bomb during the entire war.

There’s no end to the stories that can be told, and each one is a picture of what happened. I don’t want to go into reasons. As I mentioned at the beginning, attempts to find reasons demean the subject overall. But the fact is, the Holocaust occurred. It is part of our history, and therefore, we have to know it.

The casualties are enormous. Whole generations are missing within the Jewish world. Nevertheless, we persevere. The Holocaust will always haunt us, but our determination to survive and be the Jewish people is really our answer to it. That is what in the end will frustrate all the deniers, and we will be privileged to happier and stronger days. 

For more on the Holocaust and it’s aftermath, please see our film Faith and Fate 6: The Miracle of Israel, 1945-1948.

[1] Gideon Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem

[2] Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust, p. 773

[3] Gideon Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem, p. 140

German bankers carrying sacks of money, 1923. Photo by Georg Pahl. Published with permission from the German Federal Archive.

March 5, 1933 was the date of the election that gave the Nazis control of the Reichstag. Because of that, I’d like to discuss Hitler’s rise to power, which is one of the most dramatic and yet unbelievable stories in the history of man.

Hitler is a terrible example of how all of civilization can be irrevocably changed by the presence of one individual. The question is: How could Hitler have done what he did and why did the world let it happen? A study of history shows that the ground was prepared for him. He did not appear in a vacuum.

The German government after the First World War was called the Weimar Republic, controlled basically by two centrist parties, the Social Democratic Party and the Catholic Alliance. Because of the vengefulness of France and England after the war, Germany was required to pay tremendous war reparations. But the armistice allowed the reparations to be paid off in German currency, so in order to meet the payments, the Weimar Republic purposely debased their currency.

In other words, let’s say the German government had to pay a billion marks. A billion marks could, at one time, have been worth a billion dollars, but when you print a billion marks and just throw them out there, then a billion marks is worth ten cents. The Weimar Republic began printing money in denominations of billions and trillions.

That policy effectively knocked the reparations down, but it also destroyed the German middle class. People who had pensions or who lived on fixed incomes were left with nothing. People had to go grocery shopping with wheelbarrows full of money. It has become history’s classic case of hyperinflation. And most of all, it created a large class of dissatisfied people who hated the Weimar Republic.

Nazi propaganda poster that reads, "No one shall go hungry! No one shall go cold!" From the German Propaganda Archive, collected by Professor Randall Bytwerk of Calvin College.

In the midst of this turmoil, arose two extremes, each of whom wanted to topple the Weimar Republic. On the left were the Communists, and on the right were the “volkishe” parties, of which the Nazi party was only one. This was the fissure that cracked open German society. There were violent strikes in the streets, back and forth fighting, rioting, the red flag waving. People were killed. And the people of Germany, who feared Communism and abhor chaos, sided with the “volkishe” parties, who promised to establish law and order. Better to have law and order and break a few heads than to live with that chaos. In fact, part of the Nazis’ early success was that they mobilized most of the leftist street forces and brought them in under their banner. They performed just as well for Hitler as they would have for the Communists. There’s a certain identity of purpose and style with totalitarian dictators.

Hitler still may not have made it. The Nazi party was not a major force in German politics in the 1920’s. But then, destiny intervened with the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Depression wreaked havoc in Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people were unemployed. People were starving. And the Weimar Republic was incapable of dealing with it.

People want instantaneous, easy, solutions. They want a savior. They also want a scapegoat. Hitler provided both. He was the savior, and the Jews were the scapegoat. And that lethal message brought more death and destruction than was seen in all human civilization.

For more on the dramatic yet tragic 20th century, please check out our documentary film series, Faith and Fate.

Miami Beach

“Miami Beach is the exile,” he’d say, “but if you’ve got to be in exile, it’s not a bad place to be.”

As a Holocaust survivor, he’d already seen the worst places in the exile.

When you learn with someone over a long period of time, you develop a kinship that goes beyond the learning. So after knowing him awhile, I was bold enough to ask, “Rabbi, tell me. How did you get out? What happened to you during the war?”

He was silent for a while, thinking about it, and then he said, “All right, I’ll tell you the story. But I don’t tell it to many people.”

He lived near the border of Hungary and Rumania. The Rumanian army was allied with the Nazis, so he, like many young male Rumanian Jews, was taken into a “work battalion.” These battalions fought with the Rumanian army against the Russians, and they did all the dangerous work, like digging trenches under fire. 80-90% of them were killed within a month or two. They were not trained soldiers, yet they were exposed to all the shelling. It was almost certain death. And he was a delicate person, a scholar. He was not cut out for that kind of work. But he spent a year and a half in the work battalion and survived.

When the war ended, the Russians captured the entire battalion and sent everyone to Siberia. Imagine – the Jews had been forced by the Rumanians to fight, and when the Nazis were finally defeated, the Russians sent them to Siberia as enemies of the state.

Rabbi Grunwald said people were dying like flies. It wasn’t just that they couldn’t take the winter and the malnutrition. They were broken in spirit. During the war, people rallied themselves with the thought, “When the war ends, we’ll get out of this.” But now the war was over, and there was no end in sight. People were just broken.

The commandant of the camp was a Jew. One day, the commandant called him in and said, “I know that you’re innocent, that you don’t belong here. I see what you are; you’re a religious man. But there’s only one way to get out of here. You know Russian. Write a note and address it to Lazar Kaganovich.”

Lazar Kaganovich was Stalin’s brother-in-law, a member of the Politburo. He was also a Jew.

The commandant said, “If you write the note and give it to me, I’ll see that it gets to him. Tell him you were forced into the labor detail, and that you’re on the side of Russia. Tell him.”

Rabbi Grunwald thought about it for two or three days. The penalty for writing a note in the camp was instant death. Perhaps the commandant was playing with him. He’d write the note and then get shot for it. But he didn’t expect to survive much longer anyway, so he wrote the note and gave it to the commandant.

Soviet Labor Camp

A month passed. Two months passed. Four months passed. Then one day, an official car drove into the camp, and a high-ranking NKVD officer came out of it. All the prisoners in the camp were lined up. The officer said that he had orders from higher up that Prisoner Number – he read Rabbi Grunwald’s number – was there in error and was to be freed. But he said he would not let him go until he found out who smuggled the note out of the camp.

Rabbi Grunwald wasn’t going to tell, but the NKVD general waited for his answer for a week. Rabbi Grunwald kept saying he didn’t know. “What note?”

“Kaganovich – he got a note from you.”

“I know. I saw it.” But he claimed he didn’t know from anything.

After a week, they put him on a train and pushed him off at the Russian-Rumanian border. From there he got to a DP camp, and ultimately, he ended up in Canada.

“Do you know what that story is?” he said. “That camp commandant probably killed thousands of people. But he saved my life . . . for no reason. And Kaganovich! Why did Kaganovich stick himself out for me?”

This story tells us what European Jewry looked like in 1946 and ’47 – broken, subject to all of the whims and vagaries of the great powers, without any place to go. But recovering from the worst brutality possible, Rabbi Grunwald retained his faith and integrity. And that strength and tenacity is the secret of Jewish survival.