Yom Hashoah

Today is Yom Hashoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day which honors the memory of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust. This commemorative holiday always falls on the 27th day of the month of Nissan on the Hebrew calendar. The Hebrew term Yom Hashoah literally means day (yom) of catastrophe or utter destruction (hashoah.) Today, many commemorate Yom Hashoah by lighting yellow candles in order to keep the memories of the victims alive. On this day, too, many synagogues and Jewish organizations throughout the world feature ceremonies, events and speakers paying tribute to those who were lost.
One such speaker is filmmaker Gaylen Ross who showed and discussed her award-winning film, "Killing Kasztner," yesterday evening at the Woodstock (NY) Jewish Congregation. The film tells the story of Reszo Kasztner, who was known as the "Jewish Schindler." In 1944, the darkest days of the Nazi genocide, Kasztner bought salvation for 1.700 Hungarian Jews who, for several months had been sitting in a train at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Finally, thanks to the efforts of Kasztner, the train was permitted to leave and transport the fortunate Jews to safety in Switzerland.
Kasztner accomplished this miracle by negotiating face to face with the infamous Adolf Eichmann, the administrator of Hitler's "Final Solution" and paying $1,000 a head while concealing, enemies later said, the full measure of the peril that was to claim an estimated 75% of Hungary's Jews, and vouching at the Nuremberg trials for an SS colonel, Kurt Becher. He was accused as a Nazi collaborator and tried as a traitor in Israel, his adopted country. The "guilty" verdict divided the nation, nearly leading to a Civil War, and forever stamped him as "the man who sold his soul to the devil."
The verdict was eventually overturned by Israel's Supreme Court but the ruling came too late for Kasztner who was killed by Jewish right-wing extremists in Tel Aviv in 1957.
Although he was cleared, his name remained anathema, gracing no memorial walls, even at Yad Vashem, Israel's shrine to the victims of the Holocaust, although in 2007 it accepted some of his papers.
Finally, after growing research by historians and a long campaign by his aggrieved family and the many Jews that he saved, culminating in Ms. Ross' respectful documentary, his good name has been restored.
It is my hope that when the victims of the Holocaust are remembered, Kasztner's heroics are recalled, as well. It is also worth remembering that in addition to the 6 million murdered Jews, upwards of 4 million Gentiles: gypsies, homosexuals, dissidents, and protectors of Jews were slaughtered. We should be praying for the souls of these victims, too.

*I am including here the link to a very touching photo album, the only surviving photo album of the Auschwitz concentration camp. I have posted this link before but I think it is well worth re- posting on this day.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions...