Remember for Life: Holocaust Survivors' Stories of Faith and Hope

Holidays

ohdj H O L I D A Y S 83 ohdj Rosh Hashoneh was the selektzia—the selection about who was next to be killed. It was in the afternoon, three o’clock, four o’clock. We heard that Mengele was the head of these selektzia. And when he came he said, Look, that’s it. Look, what’s it? That was exactly erev Rosh Hashoneh. Everybody was sent back into the barracks. All of a sudden we hear cars coming, going, children crying, this and that, maybe for a half an hour. Now that night a rabbi came to blow the shofar in the backyard. From where he took the shofar I don’t know up to today, but he did it. Anyway, it must have been already late at night, all quiet. We had one guy I will never forget, he had a beautiful voice. That night he sang a little bit for the whole world, to daven. No one had a siddur, but we sang, crying and all that. The next morning we went into the barracks across. Empty. In the wall, the walls were made out of wood, so in the walls were scratched in names, this name, this name, and this name. Then we first find out what’s the story. That’s what it was. They took them away. That was Rosh Hashoneh, and that’s how it was until erev Yom Kippur. By that time we were already so contemptible mentally, already so hardened, that it didn’t bother us. That’s the way it is, what could you do? Jonas B. Czechoslovakia Rosh Ha-shanah 85 ohdj In October 1944, we had the High Holy Days and we were allowed to take time off for services. Of course, they had to report to the Red Cross Commissions that came to inspect Terezin that they really did good things for the Jews. That Rosh Ha-shanah services were conducted by a Czech Cantor, Goldring, who came to the states and became a cantor in Indianapolis. But Yom Kippur was reserved for my choir and me. The strange thing is every day trains were leaving and coming back, and the train whistles were haunting us without stopping, always to a point that we didn’t hear it anymore, we ignored it. On the first day of Rosh Ha-shanah, there was no whistle. We noticed the absence of the whistle as something very strange. Of course, immediately, speculations. We knew that the Russian front was coming closer. The train whistle stopped. What a wonderful sign. And sure enough the second day Rosh Ha-shanah, again services—not one train left the ghetto, no whistle. So for ten days we prayed and hoped. Comes Yom Kippur, the same thing. This had to be the end, it had to be. So we joyfully conducted our services in the highest spirits imaginable. It was a very hot day, I remember that, and we had to open the big windows of this huge hall. Outside, masses of people who couldn’t get in were pushing themselves forward, ready to catch parts of the services the whole day. Fasting for us was very easy. Actually, we were experts at this, I would say, and our spirits were very, very high, just great. At the end of this Yom Kippur service the shofar, the ram’s horn, is blown. It is blown on Rosh Ha-shanah, the beginning of the year, to call people’s attention, admonish them to seek—well, to search themselves, and offer prayers The Ten Days of Repentance 86 and ask forgiveness. So for ten days this is done. On this tenth day, this very long day, near the end of the concluding service, the neilah, at the end with the sun about to set, the shofar is blown once more. This shofar tone is called the big shofar tone. It’s a tone that’s to be held real long so it carries over into the days to follow. As we reached that point, Cantor Levy from Berlin placed that shofar to his mouth and started to blow the shofar tone. This is something one waits for, this is the signal that gives you hope and all your prayers should be fulfilled at that point or from that point on. As he blew, he brought the most beautiful long-held tone. It was...