Profile Interview by Bracha Mantaka and Shira Schmidt
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ja Fall 2011_Layout 1 8/16/11 12:23 PM Page 40 Profile Interview by Bracha Mantaka and Shira Schmidt Jewish businessmen forced to parade down a street in Leipzig carrying signs that read “Don’t buy from Jews. Shop at German stores! Photo from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), which appears in Witness to History (p. 34). Up-Close A member of the German SS su- pervises Jews boarding trains during a deportation action in the Krakow Ghetto, 1941–1942. Photo from USHMM, which appears with Ruth in Witness to History (p. 146). Lichtenstein In the years following the Holocaust, survivors were, for the most part, silent about the devasta- tion of European Jewry. Slowly, over time, a trickle of Holocaust memoirs and historical accounts appeared. Most of these works, however, emphasized physical heroism, such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But there was no comprehensive country-by-country treatment of the Holocaust that fo- cused on the spiritual heroism exhibited by thousands of victims and survivors. Ruth Lichtenstein, a daughter of survivors and the publisher of the English-language edition of the Hamodia daily newspaper and the weekly Binah Magazine, has stepped in to fill this lacuna. Lichtenstein is a granddaughter of the Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter, known as the Imrei Emes, and of Rabbi Itche Meir Levin, the leader of Agudath Israel in prewar Europe and later in Eretz Yisrael, and the daughter of Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Levin, z”l, founding editor of the Hebrew-language Hamodia. Born in Jerusalem and currently living in New York, Lichtenstein published Witness to History, an extraor- dinarily impressive work that is part of her larger undertaking called Project Witness, a comprehensive non- profit Holocaust resource center that offers academically grounded and religiously sensitive Holocaust educational resources for communities worldwide. Through Project Witness, Lichtenstein hopes to radically change the way the Holocaust is taught in day schools and yeshivot across the country. Witness to History is currently going to print for the third time. A view of the death march from Dachau passing through German villages, secretly photographed by a German civilian. Few civilians gave aid to the prisoners on the death marches. Germany, April 29, 1945. Photo from USHMM. which appears in Witness to History (p. 520). 40 I JEWISH ACTION Fall 5772/2011 ja Fall 2011_Layout 1 8/16/11 12:23 PM Page 41 JA: What motivated you to undertake the publication of JA: How many years of work did this project take? Witness to History? RL: I thought about the project for decades, and the actual RL: I was very attached to my father, Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh work took close to ten years. Leib Levin, a brilliant scholar, published author, and Holo- As editor-in-chief, I worked to bring together a team of caust survivor who passed away at a young age. While he ac- scholars, including Dr. Michael Berenbaum, a leading expert complished so much in his short life, he had so many more on the Holocaust, and Sir Martin Gilbert, a world-renowned plans. In addition to being a newspaper editor, he was a his- historian, to serve as the project’s advisors. We were under torian. In his writings on the Holocaust, he focused on the the constant guidance of renowned rabbis as well. Rochel victims’ religious responses to the suffering as well as on the Licht, a researcher and teacher who worked with historian destruction of the vibrant prewar Jewish world that existed Yaffa Eliach, worked intensively on the book. Matty Lichten- in Europe. These are the unique perspectives that historians stein, a gifted scholar, supervised a team of writers, editors, don’t generally focus on, but my goal is to bring these per- and a design team. This was a huge undertaking, but we were spectives to the forefront. It is my father’s work, his determi- a very productive team because we all believed in the impor- nation, and his legacy that has inspired me to educate future tance of this project. generations about the Holocaust. JA: Sixty-six years have passed since the end of World JA: Can you tell us why Witness to History War II. Why is it so important to teach about the Holo- is groundbreaking? caust now? Why is so much of your life devoted to it? RL: With its 632 pages, 1,500 RL: On the one hand, there are fewer and pictures, and 57 maps, Witness fewer survivors among us. On the other to History is more than a history hand, Holocaust denial has become an in- of the Holocaust. It is an epic dustry. So how do we remember? Every one undertaking that aims to present of us has an obligation, a chiyuv: “Zachor es a country-by-country history of asher asah lecha Amalek.” The Slonimer the Holocaust and to include the Rebbe, Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky, z”l, underreported wartime experi- emphasized the word lecha. “Remember ences of religious and Sephardic what Amalek did lecha—to you.” That is, in Jews—something no textbook your generation. He said that Amalek repre- has ever done. It also focuses on sents the epitome of evil that is the Jewish spiritual resistance to manifested in every genera- the Nazis, which remains a tion. The Nazis were the model for all communities, Amalek of that generation, teaching us how to live with and, as such, it is our obli- compassion, faith, and dignity. gation to remember the I asked one of my non-Jew- evil that they perpetrated. ish staff members to choose a few stories illustrating spiritual JA: You have said that as heroism that impressed him. He a child of survivors, you came back with four, although read voraciously about the he said he could have picked Holocaust for decades; you made a 400. One story was about David Pishon, a Greek Jew from point to speak with survivors, and to write about the Saloniki. Despite the intense suffering he endured, every Fri- Holocaust in the newspapers. Did you ever feel you had day night David was found singing many traditional Saloniki reached a point of saturation? piyyutim that he remembered from home. Another example he cited was the underground Chassidic yeshivah in the War- RL: About eighteen years ago, I told myself, It’s enough. At saw Ghetto. The teenage boys and young men in the ghetto that time I thought I had read enough books about the Holo- had no food. Yet they studied Torah until the bitter end. caust, seen enough pictures. Then something happened that Those are only two of the hundreds of examples. taught me that I cannot stop my work. I came across an album titled And I Still See Their Faces, Bracha Mantaka is a freelance writer living in Bnei Brak. Her sister, published by the Shalom Foundation in Warsaw. It contained Shira Leibowitz Schmidt, recently co-translated Rabbi Israel Meir photographs of Jewish men, women, and children in Poland Lau’s autobiography. The book, Out of the Depths: The Story of a that had been collected by Polish non-Jews who happened to Child of Buchenwald Who Returned Home At Last, will be pub- find them. Leafing through the album, I came across a photo lished by OU Press. Fall 5772/2011 JEWISH ACTION I 41 ja Fall 2011_Layout 1 8/16/11 12:23 PM Page 42 of someone who looked like a rav. I know this man, but from photo of the inauguration of the Yeshivah Chochmei Lublin. where do I know him? I thought. He looks very familiar. But I Rabbi Meir Shapiro is seen standing with a small sefer Torah. cannot remember his name. The caption read: “This picture But the caption, written by a non-Jew sheds new light on was found wrapped in rags near the liquidated Warsaw the event. It indicates that also pictured is a demonstration Ghetto. The Jews’ clothes were used as cleaning rags in a by the anti-religious against the new yeshivah. Additionally, German weapons factory.” I sent the picture to the Hebrew- the caption states that a Polish princess sent thousands of language Hamodia (the English-language Hamodia did not plants in order to beautify the yeshivah. This is one example exist yet), asking readers to help me identify the rav. of how we can mine photographs to learn history. It took exactly twenty-four hours to get a reply. In fact, I A caption under another photo in the album states: “We got a very angry phone call from my cousin. “Aren’t you em- live near the train station where the trains to the death barrassed?” he asked. “How could you not recognize your camps passed. My parents helped the Jews escape by hiding own great-grandfather?” It turned out that the rabbi in the them in our home. One of the Jews left a photo behind. It photo was Harav Chanoch Tzvi HaKohen Levin, who was has been hanging in my room for fifty years. It fell off the the rav of Bendin (Bedzin), a city in southwest Poland. He wall and the glass frame broke. I am an old Polish woman; I was the son-in-law of the Sefas Emes, the brother-in-law of realize that when I cross the barrier of life, this picture will the Imrei Emes, and the father of Rabbi Yitzchok (Itche) wind up in the trash.” Meir Levin, zichronam livrachah. I learned my lesson: if I Needless to say, if that is what an old Polish woman feels could not recognize my own great-grandparents, I still had about the loss of Jewish photographs, how should we feel? much to learn.