12 Friday, September 16, 1983 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Yom Kippur 1944: Prayer, Faith and the Death Camp By ALFRED LIPSON (Editor's note: The author is a native of Ra- dom, Poland and a sur- vivor of Dachau. He is president and editor of the Voice of Radom pub- lication of the United Radomer Relief for the U.S. and Canada and compiled and edited "The Book of Radom — The Story of a Jewish Community Destroyed by the Nazis." He was a member of the organizing committee of the World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in Jerusalem in 1981 and the American Gathering in Washington last spring.) The diary that I kept in the concentration camp at Vaihingen/Enz was seized by an SS guard when I was transported to Dachau. A daily record kept over months of captivity was lost in an instant, but the mem- ory of those events is as vivid for me today as when I wrote it . . . Vaihingen/Enz, Sept. 27, 1944: Today was Yom Kip- pur. The Germans must have known it, for they kept us at work until dark. At the construction site I thought frequently about our fate as slave laborers in this God- forsaken valley deep inside Germany near the Enz River. This month as we enter the sixth year of the war, and to get my mind off the gnawing hunger pains, I have been thinking about the similarities of our situa- tion with the Israelites in ancient Egypt. Instead of pyramids, we are building an underground arms fac- tory in a big excavation, formerly a stone quarry. Like the Israelites under Pharaoh ; we do all work by hand, including brickmak- ing. There is no machinery or heavy equipment, and we do back-breaking labor under the whips of our op- pressors. Two young men fell to their deaths this week while descending a rope ladder to the bottom of the pit with a load of bricks on their backs. Last night I witnessed a Kol Nidre service in the camp. It may sound in- credible, but it is the truth. I went there to see it with my own eyes. A group of older, pious Jews, including my father, gathered for prayers on this solemn Yom Kippur eve, disregarding the conse- quences. Many younger people joined them. Jewish religious services have been forbidden by the Germans since the beginning of the war. Jacob Lewental un- wrapped the Torah scroll from a talit and lovingly placed the small scroll on the bunk bed. Our Cantor Leibl then put the talit on his shoulders and began the chanting of Kol Nidre, our prayer which dates back to the Spanish In- quisition in the 15th Cen- tury, when Jews were forced to accept Chris- tianity under threat of burning at the stake. No, it wasn't a chant, it was rather a sobbing lamentation coming from a heart filled with pain and anguish. The prisoners, huddled in the aisles be- tween the three-tier bunks, joined in the familiar verses with breaking voices, tears flowing down their emaciated faces. At the service I was able to look upon the worship- pers with some degree of de- tachment. The scene seemed unreal. In my lively imagination I saw it as a scene from a medieval Jewish painting, the striped prisoners' garb taking the place of the flowing taleisim. Their pillbox caps were reminiscent of the ceremonial headwear. These hollow faces with deep, burning eyes, became for me the very same. Mar- ranos exiled from Spain, re- canting their oaths given under duress: "Kol Nidre Veesorei ." My mind returned to reality as I watched Jacob Lewental wrap the scroll tenderly, like a mother dressing her fragile infant. Last year, in the Radom labor camp, an SS officer had thrown the scroll on a garbage pile, ordering Jacob to burn it. Jacob, a kitchen worker, told the officer, looking straight in to his eyes: "Sir, this would be a waste of fuel. Let's burn it under the soup vat." Jacob smuggled his Torah scroll, with the help of his people?" I asked when devout friends, to this con- Father criticized me for not centration camp all the way praying with him last night. from Poland. He risked his "You all pleaded `Avinu life at every search. He car- Malkeinu — Shema ried it on his body, wrapped Koleinu' with such fervor, in a woolen talit, on the why is He silent? Where is forced marches in the heat His compassion in the sight of the summer, and on the of bitter suffering?" train transports past the "He has His reasons, I'm Auschwitz guards. sure; We've sinned," Father Last night, carrying his said, without emotion. s croll back to its hiding But I got emotional. place, Jacob remarked sol- "Don't tell me the little emnly: . children have sinned! "God will save us from They were the first to go!" this hell, just- as He saved Father skirted the sub- His Torah from the fire!" ject. "It was all predicted by * * * our Prophets. He quoted My father didn't see me from Ezekiel's vision, the last night at the service. valley of Dry Bones. We're He is angry and disap- the bones," he said. "We'll pointed that I am no be saved!" I struggled not to lose my longer religiously obser- vant. To him, I'm still the patience. "How long can we boy who used to accom- wait? We'll soon be real pany him to the syna- bones in the ground, not the gogue every Sabbath and allegorical ones of Ezekiel's on holidays and carry his prophecy of restoration. If your God is 'Ay talit bag. He frequently reminisces, Harakhamim,' the Father with a sorrowful voice, of Mercy, why can't He for- about the good old days at give our sins after all the home when he proudly punishment we've been sub- walked to services with his jected to, and after all the four sons and our mother, a praying you've done? If He picture of tranquility and is so omnipotent, the 'Baal contentment that has be- . Hagevurot,' why doesn't He come part of his dream im- strike our oppressors with ages. Now he resents my ir- the plagues as He sup- reverent, often blasphem- posedly did in Egypt?" Pointing at the guard to- ous remarks. The Germans know the wers, I exclaimed, "Why dates of Jewish holidays doesn't He strike them with and always use the occasion fire and lightning?" "Perhaps He will," to subject us to some specially-staged atrocities. Father answered, deep in Last night, these Orthodox his thoughts. "Very soon, Jews decided to assemble perhaps, He'll send His despite the obvious danger. messengers with fire and I suggested to some other brimstone." onlookers that the least we, * * * the non-participants, could Sept. 28, 1944: What a do was to provide some se- day! It began routinely, curity — a string of "shorn- rim" (guards) reaching to with the delayed Appell, the the main gate, ready to send usual shuffle to the camp a warning signal should a gate, the kicking and curs- German approach the bar- ing of the SS on our way to work — things we've gotten racks. "Where is your God, why so accustomed to they don't doesn't He respond to the matter any more. groaning of His enslaved . The usual, debilitating hunger has been with us all day. One never gets accus- tomed to hunger. One may get used to hard physical work, to heat or cold, but never to hunger. We talk and think about food all day. In the late afternoon they marched us back from work earlier than usual, for they ran out of cement. As a mat- and I instinctively covered my ears. Father shouted into my face: "This is like the miracle at Jericho, when God turned day into night to protect Joshua and his army!" One of the SS guards in the watchtower aimed his rifle at the airplanes and fired a shot. This was Hans, the same trigger-happy soldier who only a few weeks ago had shot and kil- led a 15-year-old Jewish boy. It was during our mid- - day break at work when the boy climbed an apple tree a' few feet from me to pick some of the remaining apples. Hans put his sandwich aside, killed the young man with one rifle shot ter of fact, no supply trucks and, after the limp body came to the construction fell to the ground with a site all day. As a result, the thud, he resumed eating work pace slackened in the his sandwich. afternoon, a welcome relief But this afternoon, after after the special workout firing his shot at the Flying they gave us yesterday, Fortresses, Hans seemingly Yom Kippur day. was gripped by fear and In the barracks, I had abandoned his post. He hur- time to wash and look up riedly descended the ladder both my father and of the watchtower and it father-in-law and share was clear to us that he not with them the few only lost his nerve, but also slightly-rotten apples I control of his bowels. When he reached the managed to pick up on the roadway while our ground, he clumsily lowered guards were distracted his pants and shorts in full by some passing local view of hundreds of pris- oners and squatted. He then girls. But before we had a ran as fast as he could in chance to finish the succu- search of some shelter, with lent lent fruit, we heard a dis- his rifle in one hand and tant roar which grew in in- soiled pants and shorts in tensity and sounded like a the other. The giant bombers were colivoy of cement trucks. coming up the road. The now directly overhead. At ground beneath us began first we were mesmerized vibrating, the walls and and overwhelmed by their bunk beds creaked. People sheer power, but now, se- outside began shouting at eing the silvery white stars the top of their voices, but I on their wings, we all went couldn't make out a word. wild with exhilaration. Suddenly, as if new life We ran outside. I couldn't believe what my eyes saw. entered our bones, all of us jumped excitedly and The whole western hori- raised our arms to get zon was covered with a dark closer to the planes. We line of airplanes, only shouted with unaccus- slightly distinguishable in tomed strength, hoping the blinding sun. that a thousand of our The sky was a perfect voices would drown out blue, with only a few small the roar of the engines white clouds, and I realized and reach at least some of that I hardly ever look at the pilots. the sky above the camp. One "Here," I yelled, "here, must always tread cau- drop them here, on us, and tiously on the camp grounds on our murderers!" to avoid the treacherous "Here!" my father begged mud and slippery board with his raised arms, "just planks — falling into a one bomb! We want to die mudhole and losing one's here like Samson with the wooden clogs is a constant Philistines!" hazard. Besides, clear skies I have no doubt in my are altogether a rarity in mind that the American this foggy valley. bombardiers saw us and the The planes drew closer watchtowers and the fleeing and it suddenly got dark. half-naked guard, but didn't There were thousands of want to risk killing us to- them, giant bombers in gether with Hans and the close formation, their other guards. They bombed, wing tips almost touch- instead, the nearby cities of ing, moving slowly and Stuttgart and Heilbronn. majestically toward us. The elation and excite- They filled the sky com- ment of this afternoon has pletely and blocked out not fully subsided. Life goes the sun. on in the camp as usual, but I recalled in my mind a much has changed. We picture I'd seen in my child- learned today that there is hood of an enormous swarm someone more powerful of lOcusts covering the sky than the Germans. that — was it a picture of one of someone knows we are here the plagues visited upon an- and may come for us tomor- cient Egypt? row. It had better be soon, The roar of a thousand before the valley is filled engines became unbearable with bones.