Today is Holocaust Rememberance Day. This is a guest post by holocaust survivor Uri Edelman via our good friend Akiva Kotler from Ashdod.
The nook in which we lived in the ghetto was narrow and suffocating. My mother managed to drag in a broken piece of furniture that in its better days had served as an armchair. Now, all that remained of it was a charred wooden skeleton, saved from a fire, and a row of metal springs that the flames could not overcome. That was where my mother would set me, a 3-year-old boy, every time the hobnailed boots were heard outside and immediately afterward the pounding on the door. She would cover me with filthy rags and sit on top. That is how I got used to lying, keeping my mouth shut, immobile. It was explained to me that if I made a sound, and the troopers discovered me, they would rip me to shreds instantly with their bayonets. I went through this experience countless times in mute heroism. One day, my luck gave out. A woman was caught stealing and the sentries' rage knew no bounds. One of them struck my mother with his rife butt and kicked my armchair shelter. It overturned, and I was found out. The soldier cocked his rifle, but his commander stopped him: "It's better to put him in front of a firing squad," he said, smiling. "A baby put to death in front of everyone will certainly have a deterrent effect."
Terror and trembling, fear and dread took hold of my whole body when I looked down the barrel of the machine gun on its stand. There was no place on my body that had not been attacked by uncontrollable shivering. I tried to call up every source of courage, physical and emotional strength, to firm up my poor limbs, but I could not. Every one of my cells, which He who dwells on high had placed in my body to create it in His image, was dancing as if in a frenetic fit. I felt that in a few seconds my limbs would separate from the skeleton that still deigned to hold on to them. My heart was pounding, both from the powerful shaking of my limbs and the fear that they would soon be scattered all around. I looked at the soldier behind the black hole of the weapon; I could not take my eyes off him. The flakes of snow on his helmet reminded me how very cold it was. For a moment our eyes met, and it seemed to me that I saw surprise in his, as if they were saying that a baby was standing before him for the first time. The order to fire came like a scream that split the air. My last memory of the world of the living was the deafening noise of the machine gun.
I do not know how much time passed, but it was certainly night when I heard, from the depths of the netherworld, the voice of my mother, weeping bitterly. I shouted with all the strength I had left. I could not move; frozen bodies covered me on all sides. My mother heard my voice, and began moving aside the dead, who lay atop me like shrouds too heavy to bear. The machine gun stand, which was level with my head, had saved my life. Except for a bleeding scratch left by the grazing bullet that had tossed me into the mass grave, my body was whole. Perhaps, it was so I could to stand up for the children who did not live and be their voice.
The writer is a lecturer in education at Bar-Ilan University.
Complete new fourth edition of Rabbi Lazer Brody's comprehensive and unique guide to coping with insult and verbal abuse. "A wonderful and valuable tool for strengthening the spirit!" (Rabbi Moshe Halberstam of the Eda Haredis in Jerusalem). Hebrew, 234 pages, Kalcom Publishers, Israel
This is the CD that we've all been waiting for, the musical legacy of Rav Erez Levanon of blessed and saintly memory, who was murdered by terrorists in March, 2007. 