Chanukah 1944. Auschwitz.
It was exactly 60 years ago. Time moves very quickly and very slowly for me.
60 years ago is both like yesterday and like a 1000 years ago. Those horrible
days are frozen moments that never go away. Yet they are also very distant
and apart - from another universe, another era.
I will never forget the last Chanukah in the barracks. Most of us were so
consumed with scrapping together any morsel while avoiding the attention of
the guards that we had no inkling which day in the year it was. Especially
in those last weeks before the liberation, the Nazis were particularly unpredictable
and cruel, and the chaos only made matters worse.
Yet there were a few who always knew the exact dates. They would tell the
rest of us that today is Shabbos, Pesach and other significant days.
On this particular day a man would tell me that it was Chanukah.
That morning I went to the infirmary to try smuggling out some balm - anything
to help relieve my father's open sores. His disease - I am not sure whether
it was Typhus or some other cursed ailment - was eating his body away, and
whenever I could sneak over to see him I would see him silently struggling
for some relief. As a child I w+as completely overcome by the sight of my
suffering father.
That particular day, when I finally snuck over to my father's bunk - if you
could even call it that, it was more like a cattle pen - he was no longer
there. I became frantic.
An older gentleman, who I did not know but I often saw talking to my father,
came over to console me. He too did not know when my father was taken - to
this day I don't know if it was the disease or a Nazi bullet that took my
father to heaven - but his was a calming presence.
He told me that today was Chanukah and we celebrate the victory of the few
weak over the many powerful oppressors. We light the candles to demonstrate
that our light is stronger than any darkness. Your father would be very proud
to know that you carry on his light despite the blackness around us.
I was so moved by his words - and all the memories it brought back from my
earlier years in Lodz - that I suggested to him enthusiastically that we should
light the menorah tonight. He sort of smiled to me the child - a smile hardly
concealing his deep anguish - and said that it would be too dangerous to try.
I insisted and made off to get some machine oil from the factory.
I was so excited. And for this brief moment I was able to put aside my grief.
I slowly made my way back, so not to be noticed, to the barrack with my treasured
bit of oil. Meanwhile the strange gentleman had put together some wicks, apparently
from clothing or some other material.
Now we needed fire to light our makeshift menorah. I noticed at the end of
one building smoldering cinders.
We agreed that we would wait till dusk and at an opportune moment we would
light our Chanukah lights.
Wait we did. As we were walking over to the cinders a guard, one of the especially
ruthless ones, noticed us and grabbed away the oil and wicks we were concealing.
He began cursing and frothing at us. A miracle seemed to happen when his superior
barked some command that apparently needed his participation, and he ran off
with our precious fuel.
The miracle however was short-lived. The animal yelled back at us that he
will soon return to "take care of us."
I was terrified. The gentleman was absolutely serene. And then he said to
me - words that are etched into my every fiber until this very day:
"Tonight we have performed a miracle greater than the miracle of Chanukah.
We have lit a flame more powerful than the Chanukah lights.
"The miracle of Chanukah consisted of finding one crucible of oil, which
miraculously burned for eight days. Tonight we preformed an even greater miracle:
We lit the ninth invisible candle even when we had no oil
"Make no mistake. We did light the Menorah tonight. We did everything
in our possible power to kindle the flames, and every effort is recognized
by G-d. G-d knows that we were deprived by forces that were not in our control,
so in some deeper way we lit the Menorah.
"We have lit the ninth flame - the most powerful one of all, so powerful
that you can't even see it."
The man then promised me: "You will get out of here alive. And when you
do take this ninth invisible flame with you and let it go free. Let it fly
like a bird.
"Tell G-d that as great as His miracle of Chanukah was, we preformed
an even greater miracle: We lit a candle even when we had no oil.
"Tell the world - show them the light that has emerged even from the
darkest of darkness. We had no physical oil and no spiritual oil. We were
wretched creatures, treated worse than animals. Yet, we in some miraculous
way we found a 'crucible' where none existed - in the hell fires of Auschwitz.
"The fires of Auschwitz annihilated not just a Temple. They burnt to
ashes the people themselves. In the Temple's destruction the Divine wrath
was released on 'the wood and the stones.' Here they have consumed our lives.
"So there was no oil. Not even defiled oil. No oil, period. Yet we still
lit a flame - a flame fueled by the pits of darkness. We never gave up.
"Let the world know that our ninth flame is alive and shining.
"Tell every person in despair that the flame never goes out."
As he finished these last words, the Nazi beast returned and viciously led
him away behind one of the barracks
I made my escape. A few weeks later the Russians arrived and we were liberated.
Here I am today to tell you the story of the ninth flame.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Source: From a Chanukah e-mailing ({wisdomreb@meaningfullife.com}
of Rabbi Simon Jacobson.