In Every Generation: The Shoah
Erev Pesach, 1943. The Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto started on the first night of Pesach. For twenty-eight shattering days, while the world watched in silence, a handful of men, women and children pitted their fragility against the massed might of the Nazi war machine. Although the flames have long been extinguished, the embers still smolder. For Pharoahs come and Pharoahs go: the Sennacheribs, the Belshazzars, the Hamans. But the Freedom Fighters of the Ghetoo will live for ever, fiery testimony to the love of liberty kindled by the Exodus. Once more the Covenant People had kept the faith.
****
In the Warsaw Ghetto it's Pesach once more.
The cup of Elijah is filled to the brim.
The faithful recount the deliverance of yore,
But in storms the Angel of Death, baleful, grim.
As always, the barking of germans is heart.
As always, the snarling of mad dogs of hate.
They have come here, these jackbooted pharoahs, to herd
Israel's innocent lambs to their terrible fate.
But never again will Jews tolerate taunts,
Never again obey death-bearing orders.
The doorposts tonight will be crimson with blood,
The blood of the murderers, freedom's destroyers.
- Bunim Heller
***
On this Seder night, we recall with anguish and with love our martyred brothers and sisters, the six million Jews of Europe who were destroyed at the hands of a tyrant more fiendish than Pharaoh. Their memory will never be forgotten. Their murderers will never be forgiven.
Trapped in ghettos, caged in death camps, abandoned by an unseeing or uncaring world, Jews gave their lives in acts that sanctified God's name and the name of His people Israel. Some rebelled against their tormentors, fighting with makeshift weapons, gathering the last remnants of their failing strength in peerless gestures of courage and defiance. Others went to their death with their faith in God miraculously unimpaired.
Unchecked, unchallenged, evil ran rampant and devoured the holy innocents. But the light of the Six Million will never be extinguished. Their glow illumines our path. And we will teach our children and our children's children to remember them with reverence and with pride.
***
We invite the souls of all who are missing, the souls of all who were snatched from our midst, to sit with us together at the Seder. This invitation was uttered by Seder celebrants in the Vila Ghetto in 1942...and we repeat it tonight. For on this night all Jews are united in history and in hope. We were all in Mitzrayim. We were all at Sinai. We were all in the hell that was the Holocaust. And we will all be present at the final redemption.
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