Essays & Stories on the Holocaust

When the world made no sense, these Jews still cared to know what they should do or not do. When the world ignored G-d and His commandments, they determined that they would not...

Is G-d responsible? How can His actions (or inaction) be defended? Should they be defended?

G-d created the rules of nature and logic. Could He not have created a world in which peace, harmony and light can be fully appreciated even when not preceded by pain and suffering?

"Take these and run to Umschlagplatz. Run! Tell the kapos that your daughter is among the captured. This is an unwritten law among us -- no snatching of policemen's children"

Reb Azriel David opened his eyes to the sight of the singing train. In a choked voice, he cried: "I will give half of my portion in the World to Come to whoever can take my song to the Modzitzer Rebbe!"

I first heard of Sammy Rosenbaum in 1965, when a Mrs. Rawicz from Rabka came into my office in Vienna to testify at a War Crimes trial

At first, I was awed by his courage. But the next day I realized, to my horror, that this man was “renting out” the siddur to people in exchange for bread . . .

Slowly the shelter came to life. My mother got up and prepared breakfast—a few crackers with some jam we still had left. But neither my two sisters nor my mother touched the food . . .

"Listen to me, Mrs. Rosenberg," her heavy face was flushed with excitement. "Let me take her. Why should she die, the innocent babe? I will care for her as if she was my own. I never had children, you know. Give her to me..."

The soldier stared at the boy, fighting back tears. "Over these four terrible years, this is the first live Jewish child I have seen..."

We were all looking away; we had not known that he was severely afflicted with Parkinson's disease. Then we heard this big bang on the table: "Gentlemen, look at me, and look at me right now. Who can tell me what the lesson of the Holocaust is?"

The year was 1945, just after the war. The place: a refugee camp somewhere in Germany. Jews just out of concentration camps had gathered in a barracks-turned-Synagogue for the Yom Kippur prayers

The woman seemed oblivious to my words. "A knife," she repeated. "I must have a knife. Now. Before it is too late"

My best friend was a girl of my age named Jeanette. One morning when I came to play, I saw her family being forced at gunpoint into a truck. I ran home and told my mother. “Don’t worry,” she said, “Jeanette will be back soon . . .”

Why can we say that biblical tragedies were punishments, yet contemporary ones are "the mysterious way of G-d"? Have today's rabbis changed their perception of G-d to fit what's politically correct?

Over this one thing
I implore You:
That my cup of gratitude
With a tear is laced

How tefillin saved a person's life again and again -- during the Holocaust and in its immediate aftermath.

Crystallizing slowly over time in the old man’s soul was the singular obligation of telling the story of that child’s last moments.

Auschwitz showed us that just as man can sink as low as the basest animal, so can he rise to the level of angels

This tree trunk stood in the backyard of Jana Sudova, a Czech Righteous Among the Nations, who in early 1945 hid four Jewish escapees of the death marches...

On those rare occasions when we could coax my mother to speak about her war experiences, she would always begin with a wistful, nostalgic depiction of her very typical, very normal childhood. "The world was different when I was little," she would croon.

When one enters this place, through the still intact train tracks under that tower-like structure, one can simply not see how long and far it goes, for it is so incredibly massive. And all this for what?

Using every means at his disposal, the 32-year-old succeeded in rescuing over 100,000 Jews within a six-month period. While Oskar Schindler is a household name, due largely to the acclaimed film “Schindler’s List,” Wallenberg—who saved many more people—is virtually unknown. And that’s a tragedy . . .

I understand that in the seven weeks between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot we observe a period of mourning for the death of over 20,000 sages who died during this period. But for the 6 million Jews brutally murdered in the Holocaust we have only one day dedicated to mourning.

My grandfather, Dovid Henoch Zaklikowski, or “Reb Henoch” as he was affectionately dubbed, was known in the community for his kind smile and generous heart. This is what I heard from everyone I asked about my namesake, my grandfather.