Miracles

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

Assistant Editor

24

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1991

Illustration by Giora Carm i

MODERN-DAY

f not for a
sonderKom-
mando, Martin
Adler wouldn't
be alive today.
Martin was a 14-year-old
Jew deported in 1944 with
his family to Auschwitz.
Together with his parents,
two younger brothers and
sister, he was taken out of a
boxcar and shoved through
the gates of the Nazi death
camp. He and his father
were told to go to the left; the
rest of the family went to the
right. Martin held his
father's hand.
Hungry, dirty and
exhausted, the men were
crowded together. In a mo-
ment, they would meet Dr.
Josef Mengele. He would see
to it that the elderly,
deformed and children did
not live a moment too long.
Just before their appoint-
ment with the "Angel of
Death," Martin and his
father, who was in his mid-
40s, were stopped. A sonder-
Kommando, approached and
asked their ages.
Hearing the truth, the
sonderKommando shook his
head. "Say you're 38," he
whispered to Martin's
father. "And say your boy is
16, or you'll lose him."
It was a gesture that put
his life in danger.
SonderKommandos were
Jews forced by Nazis to
assist with exterminations.
To have helped anyone
would have meant their cer-
tain death.
The Adlers did as they
were told. And because of
the warning, they were not
sent to the gas chambers.
Martin Adler is one of a
number of local residents
who have experienced un-
common occurrences: a bit of
advice that saved their lives,
a chance meeting that
revealed a long-lost history,
a newfound link to the past
that completely altered their
existence. Some tie such
events to mysticism; others
believe they are miracles.
The Torah is replete with
extraordinary events and
symbols like the parting of
the Red Sea, the Ten
Plagues and Moses' staff
turning into a snake.
The rabbis explain that
the post-biblical world has
its share of miracles, too, but
of a different nature. In
these times, God's presence