A dramatic reading, with visuals
Based on text by Robert A. Adelson-adapted by Rabbi Norbert Weinberg with material from USHMM and other sources
Thank you to Robert A Adelson for permission to adapt his text for this presentation. For the original text of Haggadah Hashoah, please go to:https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgq51ooihlj2w2p/HAGGADAH%20HA%20SHOAH%20by%20Robert%20Adelson.pdf?dl=0
This is available as a Powerpoint Slide Presentation.
Opening Element
Paul
Robeson sings the Partisan Song
Paul Robeson was the great
operatic vocalist known for his efforts on behalf of African Americans and for
social justice. He was also a great friend of the Jews. He paid tribute on June
14, 1949, at his concert at Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, to Jewish Holocaust
victims, he reduced his stunned audience to tears by singing Hirsh Glick’s
great anthem from the Vilna Ghetto, ‘Zog
Nit Keynmol,”
also known as “The Partisan Song,” in both Russian and Yiddish. The Politburo
was not amused.
Readings:
•Leader:
At
our Seder
tonight
we read the Haggadah, the
“telling” of the Exodus from Egypt and soon partake in our
festive meal. We
meet in confidence. Our lives are secure.
However, for we Jews, this was not
always so.
Reader:We recall now the Holocaust, in Hebrew, Ha
Shoah.
It was the planned murder of the Jews of Europe between
1939 and 1945
by Nazi Germany and its leader, Adolph
Hitler
•Reader: In
the 1930s, most world Jewry faced each
passing year with increasing dread.
Fascist anti-Semitic
regimes ruled most of Eastern Europe. And worst of all,
there rose the specter of
the most virulent anti-Semitism
the world has ever known—that of Hitler and
Nazi
Germany. Where the Nazi conquered, we Jews were
singled out, hunted down,
made separate from our
neighbors
•
•Reader:
We
were forced to wear the Star of David. We
lost every protection of the law. We
faced every possible
indignity. If you
had any Jewish blood or ancestry, you
were the No. 1 target of hatred by the
relentless Nazi state.
•Reader:
We
were forced to give up our businesses and
our life’s careers. Our possessions
and family heirlooms
were routinely looted. We were forced to leave our
homes
to move to overcrowded ghettos. We were
systematically starved, subjected to
slave labor and
medical experiments. And when we didn’t die fast
enough, the
Nazis invented their new machines of doom
—the gas chamber and the crematoria.
•
•
•Reader:
By
1945, the Nazis had murdered 6 million
European Jews. They represented 1/3 of
the Jewish
people: 1 Jew out of every 3 Jews in the world perished
in the Shoah.
Reader: We were not military people. We had no chance
to defend ourselves.
Reader: Yet despite everything against
them, some Jews
managed to fight back. We revolted in several of the camps
and
ghettos such as Treblinka and Sobibor. Starting
Passover night in 1943, with few weapons and no outside
support, we fought the German army for three weeks in the
Warsaw ghetto. This
is how it began, exactly 76 years ago,
on the night of the Seder, April 19,
1943:
Reader In April the ghetto was rife with rumors of an
upcoming deportation.
Despite this, the Jews of the ghetto
continued with their preparations for
Passover. Some even
baked matzot, obtained wine, and koshered their dishes in
preparation for the
holiday. On the 18th of April 1943, news
arrived that the Germans had stationed
an army in Warsaw
and it seemed that the ghetto was to be liquidated. The
members of the underground resistance movements went
into high alert. That
night the ghetto was surrounded. Many
people had already heard of this from the
reports of lookouts
posted as a matter of course on the rooftops.
Reader : In the words of the survivors No one slept that
night. Everybody spent the time packing the most
necessary
articles, linen, bedding, food and taking it down to the
bunkers. The
moon was full and the night was unusually
bright. There was more movement in
the courtyards and
streets than by day.(Tuvia Borzykowski, Between Tumbling
Walls,
p.48)
Reader It was Passover eve, 1943, and we
had arranged
everything in the house in preparation for the holiday. We
even
had Matzot (unleavened bread),
everything. We had
made the beds… The policeman who lived with us always
told
us everything that was going to happen… He told us,
"You should know that
the ghetto is surrounded – with
Ukrainians. Tonight will not be a good night."
He had heard
this. We took all our belongings and went into the bunker.
Why
wait? So we took what we still had at
home, whatever
food we had, everything, and went down into the bunker.
And waited.(Testimony
of Shoshana Baharir,
Yad
Vashem
Archive, O.3/5469)
Reader On the 19th of April 1943, Passover eve, the
Germans entered the
ghetto. This was the Seder in Rabbi
Eliezer Meisel's apartment:
Amidst this destruction, the table in the center of the room
looked
incongruous with glasses filled with wine, with the
family seated around, the
rabbi reading the Haggadah. His
reading was punctuated by explosions and the
rattling of
machine-guns; the faces of the family around the table were
lit by
the red light from the burning buildings nearby.
Reader: It
took the German armies only six weeks to conquer France, Belgium, Holland and
Luxembourg but it took 28 days to subdue a rag tag army of 1500 armed with
pistols and rifles
Reader:The
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was nothing less than a revolution in Jewish history.
Jews had resisted the Nazis with armed force. The significance and
symbolic resonance of the uprising went far beyond
those who fought and died. As the leader, Anielewicz
wrote: My life’s dream has now been realized: Jewish self-defense in the
ghetto is now an accomplished fact.…I have been witness to the magnificent,
heroic struggle of the Jewish fighters.
(https://www.britannica.com/event/Warsaw-Ghetto-Uprising
Leader:
Hitler underestimated the resilience of the Jewish
people and our ideals. We,
the Jewish people, did not
become extinct . Just as we rebuilt and renewed
ourselves
after the assaults of Pharaoh, Haman, Antiochus, and all
who would
destroy the Jewish people, our ethics, ideals and
all we stand for, so again we
renewed ourselves after the
Holocaust. We saw the miraculous rebirth of the
State of
Israel on our ancient soil. We saw Israel grow to a strong
democratic
beacon to the world. In this land of America, we
have built a
thriving community, loyal, productive
and
contributing to a nation that has welcomed us with open
arms.
Together: As we
remember the Exodus, so we remember the 6 million. As we were once slaves in
Egypt, so tonight ALL of us are survivors of the Shoah. Ani ma’amin: It was the prayer of the camps. Ani ma’amin. Be’emuna shelema: I believe with complete faith in the
coming of Justice to this world. With the Torah and the prophets as my guide, I
will not give up our quest. I will seek justice and righteousness. I will seek
to make this world a better place, for all people, today and tomorrow. To this,
in
their memory, I
pledge myself. Ani ma’amin.
Am Yisrael
chai
•Ani ma'amin,
Be'emuna shelema
Be'emuna shelema
•Beviat hamashiach ani ma'amin
Veaf al pi sheyitmahmeha
Im kol zeh, achake loh
Achake bechol yom sheyavoh
Veaf al pi sheyitmahmeha
Im kol zeh, achake loh
Achake bechol yom sheyavoh
•
•
Am
Yisrael
chai, od avinu
chai!
Audio-Visuals:
Ben Gurion Declares Independance
Hatikvah: Barbara Streisand
