Mr. Mann, Executive Director; Colonel
Winbush, Colonel Michelson and Directors and all who are here today for this
gathering of remembrance:
It is an honor to have the opportunity to
offer reflections in the presence of all of you who work to preserve and defend
our country and our freedom. On a recent trip to Philadelphia for my
annual rabbis convention, I was reminded of the significance of that freedom
with a visit to the Liberty Bell and a viewing of exhibits at the National
Museum of American Jewish history. One of the most significant displays there featured
a well-known letter written by newly elected President George Washington to the
Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. Echoing sentiments expressed to
him during a visit to Newport by the congregation’s leader, Moses Seixas,
Washington characterized the approach of our nation towards its increasingly
diverse population: “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it
were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of
their inherent n
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| Memorial Candles lit at Temple Beth-El Las Cruces on April 15, 2015 |
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atural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United
States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,
requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves
as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
We know in retrospect how much was yet to be done at that time for the United
States to further overcome bigotry and persecution in all respects, an effort
that continues even today. Whatever we do to move towards treating
our fellow citizens with greater respect is founded on Washington’s words in
1790. In the late 18th Century, compared
to other nations across the ocean, that American brand of affirmation and
acceptance was unique and, as Washington often noted, worthy of imitation.
1900
years ago, two Rabbis were debating what verse from the first five books of the
Bible, the Torah, was its most essential teaching. One rabbi, Akiba,
declared that Leviticus Chapter 19, verse 18, “Love your neighbor as yourself,”
was the most fundamental principle in the Torah. His colleague, Ben Azzai, had
a different idea. He quoted Genesis Chapter 5, verse 1 as an even greater
teaching: “This is the story of humanity: when God created us, God made us in
the divine image.” A later rabbi explained that, because of Ben Azzai’s
statement, we need to be careful not to put anyone else to shame, because, if
we do, we put ourselves to shame as well, since we all came from the same place
and there is a spark of God in each of us.
This last week has featured anniversaries of past events that offer a glimpse
into how well people see that divine spark in one another’s eyes and
hearts. 150 years ago this past Tuesday, President Abraham Lincoln
was assassinated by a man who was dedicated, along with others, to the cause of
denying humanity to many people who were brought here against their will and
had lived and worked in this country for decades. 68 years ago yesterday, Jackie Robinson took
the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers for the first time, enduring whatever hatred
was expressed during that season to demonstrate that he and other African-American
baseball players belonged in the Major Leagues. Next week will mark
the hundredth anniversary of the widely recognized tragedy of the deaths of Armenians
living in the Ottoman Empire which, in some political arenas, still strives to
find mention and recognition. One year ago yesterday, 219 schoolgirls were
abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria and they still have not been found. One year
ago this past Monday, Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. embarked on a personal mission
to kill Jews in the Kansas City area, not far from where I was born and
raised. Miller murdered a grandfather
and a grandson in the parking lot at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park,
Kansas. He then went to a nearby retirement home, Village Shalom, and murdered
a woman who had just visited her mother there. The grandfather and grandson
were Methodist. The woman at Village Shalom was Catholic. Miller could not
imagine, in his twisted mind, that Jewish facilities might actually serve the
greater community, in the spirit of the vision expressed by President
Washington. His violent act
had the unintended consequence of bringing closer together people of different
faiths in the greater Kansas City area.
And 70 years ago, this past Saturday, American soldiers liberated the
Buchenwald Concentration Camp, an act that constituted a major part of a movie,
released earlier this year, which was screened on the HBO Network. In “Night
Will Fall,” director Andre Singer told the story of a lost documentary that the
Allies intended to show to the German people as a reminder that, after World
War II, it was their task to create a society that gave “to bigotry no
sanction, to persecution no assistance.” British Film producer Sidney
Bernstein, then a government official, solicited assistance from director Alfred
Hitchcock in making that film which was to be called “German Concentration
Camps: A Factual Survey.” The project was
eventually shelved for reasons not fully known, likely driven by the politics
of post-war Germany and Great Britain and the desire to have the German people
fully participate in the work of reconstruction and de-Nazification. The plan
was that the “Factual Survey” would bring together 1945 film footage of the
liberation by Soviet troops of Auschwitz in January, the liberation of
Buchenwald by American soldiers on April 11, and the liberation of Bergen-Belsen
by British troops on April 15. In each camp, specially-trained soldiers filmed
the interaction between liberators and survivors. They caught on camera the
arrest of Nazi camp leaders and workers who had remained rather than escaping,
believing they were in no danger and likely thinking they had done nothing
wrong. The film that was taken visually chronicled the horrific results of the
Final Solution in those three camps: thousands of bodies of the dead not yet
buried, and countless belongings of those brought to the camps piled high in
storage facilities more than one could even imagine. Most of this
footage found its way into a film released in 1984, “Memory of the Camps,” screened on Public
Television at that time. In recent years, the staff at the British Imperial
War Museum found more of the footage and, last year, the “Factual Survey” documentary
was released as it was intended to be shown, along with its carefully crafted narration.
Andre Singer’s film “Night Will Fall” about the restoration process of the “Factual
Survey” documentary featured interviews with survivors, soldiers, and some of
those who were behind the camera. The
title of Singer’s film came from a line in the documentary’s narration, “Unless the world learns the lesson these pictures teach,
night will fall.” British film critic Peter Bradshaw commented about
the power of Singer’s film: “It shows images which I have certainly never seen
before. It exposes once again the obscenity of Holocaust denial. This is an
extraordinary record. But be warned. Once seen, these images cannot be
unseen."
In considering the topic, “Choosing to Act,” it would be common to focus on
rescuers, partisan fighters, leaders of revolts in the ghettoes and
concentration camps, and all those who helped others survive. I believe that
the staff at the British Imperial War Museum and director Andre Singer
demonstrated a modern day choice to act on behalf of the memory of all of those
victims for whom candles were lit a few moments ago. That choice
goes beyond recalling those who died, because the remaining survivors,
soldiers, and eyewitnesses who saw all that happened may not live too much
longer. To tell the story of the Shoah, the Holocaust is a choice
that empowers us to share with the entire world the principle of giving “to
bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
That choice to act and the responsibility to tell these stories has now become
all the more crucial for the descendants of survivors. Menachem Z. Rosensaft, founding chairman of
the International Network of the Children of Jewish survivors, published a book
earlier this year that brings together the reflections of children and
grandchildren of Jewish Holocaust survivors from around the world. In
considering the theme “Choosing to Act,” I knew that Rosensaft’s book, GOD,
FAITH AND IDENTITY FROM THE ASHES, would include wisdom from its contributors
about the lessons we can learn from the Holocaust that can lead us to action in
the here and now. It was inevitable that those expressions would suggest how we
can, today, help people all over the world discover and uncover the best of
their humanity.
Rosensaft, the son of survivors
of the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, was born in May, 1948 in
the Displaced Persons camp of Bergen-Belsen in Germany. He comes by his reflections on the lessons of
the Holocaust from a deep personal experience.
He stated in the introduction to his book, “We…have a moral responsibility not to stand idly
by…while human beings anywhere in the world are oppressed or persecuted. We
have no right to criticize the world for not coming to the aid of our parents
and grandparents during the 1930s and 1940s unless we do everything in our
power to fight all forms of contemporary racial, religious, or ethnic hatred
and to prevent contemporary genocides, whether in Darfur, Rwanda, the former
Yugoslavia, or elsewhere. If we learn only one lesson from the cataclysm known
as the Holocaust, it must be that the ultimate consequence of silence and
indifference to the dire plight of others was embodied forever in the fires of
Auschwitz and the mass graves of Bergen‑Belsen.”
Included
in this book was a contribution from Andre Singer, director of the film “Night
Will Fall.” He had extended family who
died in the Holocaust, and his Jewish mother was sent in the 1930s from Vienna
in Nazi-controlled Austria to the relative safety of London. Singer
focused his reflections on how we deal with difference in our world and why
that is crucial to how we choose to act.
He commented: “Many of us take our identity for granted. We are born
into it, grow within its cocoon, and have no need to question it. It gives us
comfort, protection, and an indelible sense of recognition about where we stand
in this tumultuous world and thus how we should behave, not only toward our
peers but also towards others whose identity is different. For many, this is where the trouble starts. It
seems an almost universal reaction that the members of one group, one identity,
are suspicious of members of another. They may look different, speak differently,
eat different food – and believe in different gods. This suspicion can be
neutralized by education and familiarity. But sometimes it intensifies into
resentment and then hatred, and when accompanied by power and brutality, into
acts of barbarism that change the course of history….[However] if I have
learned one lesson from this intense involvement in the experiences of others
during the Holocaust, it is that our species has an astonishing spiritual
resilience in adversity.”
Clarence
Schwab had one grandfather who was saved by a fellow prisoner from a death
march in Germany in 1945 which led to his liberation by the British. Schwab’s other grandfather was caught in Stockholm
while doing business there in 1940 when the Soviets invaded Latvia. He brought his family from Latvia to Sweden, and
he supported rescue efforts during the war that involved the celebrated and
tireless work of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Schwab piece in Rosensaft’s collection
offered this wisdom from his experience as the grandchild of survivors: “What
matters most, I tell my children, is not someone's appearance, or intelligence,
or strength, or wealth, but whether, when presented with an opportunity to do
so, that person helps another in time of need-even or especially at personal
cost or risk.”
Rabbi Moshe
Waldoks, whose survivor parents met in a displaced persons camp near Munich,
wrote in Rosensaft’s book about the challenge of dealing with the role of God
at that dark time. “All too often the question "Where was God [during the
Holocaust]?" is asked of rabbis by so many to justify their loss of
faith. This is a red herring. In effect, you want to know why the God you
didn't believe in didn't reveal itself during the Shoah. The tragedy of the
Holocaust is precisely not in the Divine realm, but rather in the failure of
human beings to behave in the image of God.”
Rabbi Judith Schindler’s grandparents, father
and aunt were separated for a time when her grandfather had to leave Germany when
the Nazi’s sought his arrest as an enemy of the state. They were all finally able to leave Germany by
mid-1938, reuniting in Switzerland and immigrating to the United States. Judith’s father, Alexander Schindler, completed high school in America and then served
in the United States Army’s Tenth Mountain Division and fought Hitler’s forces
in World War II. He was wounded in
Italy, earning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. Alexander Schindler eventually was ordained as
a Reform Rabbi and, for 23 years, he served as president of the Reform Jewish
movement of which I am a part. Rabbi
Judith Schindler was profoundly influenced by her family’s experiences. In her
entry in Rosensaft’s anthology, she explained, “My grandfather's voice calls to me, saying, ‘Never
be complacent. Be vigilant about hatred. Speak out against injustice, no matter
what the cost.’ When I hear of rhetoric or legislation built upon racism,
anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, or any other bigotry, I
cannot be silent. Even in the face of those who seek to intimidate and threaten
me, my past enjoins me to act. My grandfather's voice does not allow me to look
the other way when inequities permeate our society and prejudiced voices echo
in the air. Acting with moral courage is the message I teach, preach, and
aspire to fulfill. The call of our
biblical prophets such as Amos to bring righteousness and justice to the world
is a primary Jewish legacy I choose to embrace. My role as a rabbi is to
comfort the disturbed, to disturb the comfortable, and to bring God's vision
for justice to the world. The Holocaust
taught us that human good is not a given. Free will demands that when free will
fails humanity, we must act.”
Judith
Schindler explained that choosing to act is beneficial not only to those who
are oppressed, but also to those who believe that oppression is their only
choice. Quoting 20th Century
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, she offered this exhortation to take on a new
perspective: “In calling upon us to shatter the walls of segregation [at the
height of the civil rights movement], Rabbi Heschel wrote, ‘The tragedy of
Pharaoh was the failure to realize that the Exodus from slavery could have
spelled redemption for both Israel and Egypt. Would that Pharaoh and the
Egyptians had joined the Israelites in the desert and together stood at the
foot of Sinai!’ Heschel teaches us that
oppression of any people is oppressive not only to the victim but also to the
oppressor and the bystander. It stains our souls, constrains our spirituality,
and destroys our sense of peace.”
I will conclude my words in a few moments with
a poem by Chanah Senesh, who left her native Hungary in the 1930s to live in
the British Mandate of Palestine, joining other Jews there to build a new
society in relative freedom. However,
when the opportunity came to attempt to rescue Jews in Hungary, including her
mother, she jumped at the chance to join a parachutist unit which would work
behind Nazi lines. Senesh was captured,
tortured and put to death by the Nazis at the age of 23. I have been telling that story for years, but
I didn’t expect that to see an entry in Rosensaft’s book from Chanah Senesh’s
nephew, David Senesh. He told of being
an Israeli soldier in the 1973 October War between Israel, Egypt and Syria which
is known as the Yom Kippur War. The
younger Senesh was captured near the Suez Canal and taken to a prison in Cairo,
where he experienced brutal treatment. He spoke of the strong connection he felt to
his courageous aunt as he endured his own challenges: “In October 1973, I felt myself, like Chanah ,
to be in the midst of a deadly vortex. There was no way of knowing who would survive
that dreadful Yom Kippur and who would perish, who would die by water and who
by fire, who by bullet and who by shrapnel, who by wound and who by
imprisonment. Chanah 's story ended all too prematurely and tragically. She
joined a small group of youngsters in Palestine who volunteered to go on a
mission conceived by the Haganah and the British army to cross enemy lines into
Nazi-occupied Europe. Chanah 's plan was to go back to Hungary to organize and
attempt to rescue the Jews there. However, in March 1943, after Chanah and the others had parachuted into Yugoslavia,
Hungary was invaded by Germany. Against all odds, Chanah nevertheless continued her mission but was
immediately captured upon crossing the border. Tortured by the Gestapo, she
refused to talk even when her interrogators confronted her with her mother, my
grandmother, to make her cooperate and disclose classified military
information.” David Senesh is now a
psychotherapist who works with people who have faced trauma so that they can heal, recover their own humanity
and tell their own story.
We can
choose to act out of a sense of solidarity with all people, seeing in them a
spark of God, that divine image that calls us to reach out to our fellow human
beings in a spirit of decency, cooperation, respect, support, and, finally,
love. In his contribution to Rosensaft’s book, Rabbi Abie Ingber quoted one
of his teachers, well known singer-songrwriter Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who once
said, “, "If I had two hearts like I have two legs and two arms, I could
love with one and hate with the other, but God gave me just one heart and I
choose to use it for love."
As the flames
of memory that were lit earlier continue to burn before our eyes, let us hold
in our hearts all of those who were put to death because one leader and his
followers begrudged them their humanity and existence. We can act now on behalf of those today who
have no one to save them and thereby, in some small way, redeem the memory of
those who died 70 years ago and before. The fire that we light in our hearts can lead
to goodness, love and peace and preserve inside each of us a sense of renewal
and optimism that can spring eternal.
Here is Chanah Senesh’s timeless poem that can accompany the flickering
of the candles before us:
“Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness
of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with the strength to stop its
beating for honor’s sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.”
For the
memory of those who died, for the courage of those who lived and taught us to reach
our highest potential for goodness, may we choose to act so that more and more
people in our world will know acceptance, fellowship and freedom. This task is now ours – and may we do it with
honor, with courage, with strength and with hope.
What is holy?
Treating people with
objectivity and fairness, as much as possible, is holy. 
