Yom HaShoa & Halacha
EL
ByEryn London

Livia Koralek

On the eve of Yom Kippur in 1944, Livia delivered a sermon to the women in the camp. She encouraged them to give each other something that would exist forever and that never ends—love.

Born in 1921 in Gyor, Hungary, Livia was deported to Auschwitz in June 1944 and transferred in August to Parschnitz Camp (Sudetenland), where she worked in a factory that manufactured aircraft parts. She gave the sermon at the request of her friends. “I didn’t want to be a Kapo; I didn’t want to be a leader. There was no need for it. I only wanted to give encouragement.” The women did not eat the bread that they received on Yom Kippur; instead, they stored it under their pillows. On Passover, the women attempted to hold a Seder but the Germans broke it up. Livia refrained from eating bread that week. After the war, Livia married Aladar (Jehuda) Spiegel and immigrated to Israel with her family.

I ask God, on behalf of all of us, to forgive us for having offended our parents, relatives, siblings, and our friends. We ask God to forgive us on behalf of our loved ones, because we are far from all our loved ones and cannot ask them to forgive us. I remember that our rabbi in the town of Gyor gathered us before he was sent to Auschwitz, and here is what he said, in part: “It is not the place that sanctifies man but man who sanctifies the place.” On this holy day, we are being put to a test. We must observe the commandment “You shall not steal.” Each of us receives a tiny ration and must be content with it. I feel that God will hear our prayers, wipe the tears from our eyes, and answer us with the words from the prayer service: “I have forgiven you.”

From a sermon given by Livia (Chana) Koralek in Parschnitz Camp, on Yom Kippur, 1944 http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/spots_of_light/livia_koralek.asp

Dita Kurschner

Convinced that no Jew would survive the Holocaust, Dita considered it imperative to record Jewish prayers. With no knowledge of Hebrew, she phonetically transcribed prayers, as she heard them, into Latin characters.

Dita was born in Vienna in 1930; her family fled to Hungary in 1939. In April 1944, they were moved into a ghetto and in June 1944, deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In Auschwitz, Dita’s mother, Hedy, adopted fifteen-year-old Zsuzsana (Zsuzsi) Weber, whose family had been murdered. They were sent from Auschwitz to Gelsenkirchen and on to Sommerda. It was at this camp that Dita stole stickers from ammunition boxes, on which she recorded the prayers recited by a woman named Klari Kahna. As the war neared its end, the camp inmates were taken on a death march. Klari Kahna was killed in a shelling on liberation day. Dita’s father, Lajos, was murdered. Dita, her mother, and Zsuzsi were liberated in Reinholdshain and immigrated to Israel.

There was a woman there, Klari Kahna. She prayed all day and night. I listened to her prayers and I thought I’d write them down so that if we’d die they would know that Jewish women had been there. I sat next to her all night, writing. She prayed in archaic Hebrew and I recorded the prayers in Latin characters.

From the testimony of Dita (Kurschner) Segal, 2006 (http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/spots_of_light/dita_kurschner.asp)

Using Contraception Because of the Dangers within the Ghetto

From Shu”t Mima’amakim, Rav Ephraim Oshry (1914-2003)

(While in the Kaunas Ghetto and Concentration Camp, Oshry began writing his responsa regarding the Holocaust, answering very difficult questions concerning human nature, God, and Jewish ethics. Before the final battle between the Nazis and the Soviets, Oshry buried his responsa in the ground. After the war, he retrieved them and ultimately - in 1959 - he published some of those Hebrew responsa under the title: She'eilos Uteshuvos Mima'amakim (Questions and Responses from the Depths). This volume ultimately was followed by four more volumes, the final one published in 1979. There is an abbreviated version in English (with much of the halakhic argumentation removed): Responsa from the Holocaust.)

(http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22097&st=&pgnum=112)

Question: ...and today, on the 20th of Iyar 1941, the evil ones made a decree that if they find a Jewish woman pregnant, they will kill her and the fetus. And I ask, if it is permitted for the women of Israel that are imprisoned in the Ghetto, to use contraception to make sure they do not become pregnant, and save themselves for this decree?

Answer: In TB Yevamot (12b) it is taught: “Rav Bibi came become Raban Gamilel- there are three women who are allowed to use contraception: a minor; a pregnant woman; and one who is nursing. A minor because perhaps she will become pregnant and die; a pregnant woman because perhaps she will cause death to the first fetus; and the nursing mother because perhaps he will wean too early and he will die.” And Rashi comments there, “They can use the moch in the place where they have sex so she will not become pregnant.” And Tosaphot says, “ What Rashi writes that these women are allowed to use the moch but other women are not because they will cause seed to be spilled, even though they are not stringent on priah u’riviah, and Rabenu Tam says, before having sex it is obviously prohibited to use a moch because that is not the way that one has sex, but but she used a moch after having sex there doesn’t seem to be a prohibition, because one with have sex with a minor or an aiylonit even though they are not able to have children, and a woman who uses a moch after sex isn’t warned about spilling seed...”

In Tosaphot TB Ketubot (39a) it is written: “According to the R”i it seem to fulfill what Rashi writes in the beginning of TB Nida, it seems like the moch is inserted and placed there for a long period of time, and it would seem to be like he has sex on stones. and is not similar to having sex with a minor or an ayilonit. And also, even using a moch after having sex would also be prohibited, because even though she is not commanded on preiah u’riviah, nonetheless she can’t kill the sperm...”

In the Shita Mikubetzet on Ketubot, he brings the Ritvah who says that women are prohibited from killing sperm while having sex or after having sex, but in a case of danger she is allowed, thus they allowed in the three women mentioned in Yevamot... the Shita Mikubetzet also brings the Rosh and Rebenu Yona and the Talmidei Ha’Rashba, that a woman is not allowed to kill sperm unless there is danger like mentioned with the three women, but rather there are women who are allowed to use a moch before sex and some who are allowed after sex.

And here, according to Rashi, if there we are worried about danger than we can use a moch before sex (and also in TB Nida 48b)...and the Rosh (Nedarim 35b) who wrote that there are some women who can use a moch le’chatchila.

...And on this also the Achronim sat and asked about, the Yam shel Shlomo was meikil, and allowed the use of the moch during sex because there was still bodily pleasure, and he follows Rashi that allows the use of a moch before sex...

...Take from all that is written above with regards to our case, that since there is definite danger to one’s life, that if one of the impure murders may their name be erased, know of a pregnant woman, she will die with her fetus...and why was there a prohibition, because here there is no spilling of seed. Because there is only spilling of seed when one is able to inseminate, and because we are not in a place that there can be insemination, there is no calling it spilling of seed. Rather one must use a moch, and even use it before sex.

Responsa From the Holocaust, written by Rabbi Ephraim Oshry. Translated by Y. Leiman (New York, 2001). Excerpted with permission from the Oshry family. http://www.ou.org/jewish_action/04/2013/responsa_from_the_holocaust/

Reciting Kaddish for a Gentile Woman

Question:During the days of affliction when the accursed Germans mercilessly annihilated young and old, men and women, the Lithuanian gentiles, with whom the Jews had lived for hundreds of years, conspired with the German murderers to kill Jews and loot their property. They sought out the Jews wherever they were hiding and whenever they caught one immediately handed him over to their German masters who proceeded to torture and kill the Jew.

Despite the violent hatred that the gentiles had for the Jews, a hatred which the Germans fanned into a flame of vengeance, there were among them unique individuals who were anguished by the cruelty committed against Jews and would not sit by doing nothing. Whatever they did, though, was done at an enormous risk because the Germans immediately shot anyone they suspected of aiding Jews. Nevertheless, such people existed and they saved Jews at whatever cost.

In 1945, shortly after our liberation, Reb Moshe Segal came to me with the following question: He had been saved by a gentile woman who, at enormous risk to herself, had hidden him in her basement together with ten other Jews, providing them all with food and shelter until the liberation. After the war, when these Jews wanted to repay her in some way for her great compassion, they discovered to their deep sorrow that she had died right after the liberation. The idea took root in their minds to say Kaddish for her, and Reb Moshe Segal was chosen for the task. His question was, Was it permissible to say Kaddish for a gentile?

Response: Basically, Kaddish is a prayer of praise to G-d. When Rabbi Nathan of Babylonia was appointed Exilarch, the cantor used to add in Kaddish the phrase, “In your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of our Exilarch and in the lifetime of all the Jewish people.” Similarly, in the days of Maimonides, they used to add in the Kaddish, “In your lifetime and in the lifetime of our master Moshe ben Maimon.”

In this vein of mentioning others in the Kaddish, it is plainly permissible to say Kaddish in memory of the gentile woman who saved so many Jews from death…. Not only is it permissible to say Kaddish with her in mind, it is a mitzva to do so.

Eating Soaked Matza to Fulfill the Passover Mitzva

Question:In the winter of 5702 (1942), several months before Passover, many of the Jews in the Kovno Ghetto began to try to figure out ways to fulfill the mitzva of eating matza on Pessach. At that time even the most basic foods were not available in the ghetto, let alone white flour from which matza is normally baked. The ghetto prisoners ate whatever they could get their hand on because the black bread that was rationed out was never enough to keep away hunger, and the Germans guarded against any food getting into the ghetto.

Precisely because of this plight, people made every effort not to be ensnared by depression or apathy but to retain their spirits and their psychological strength, hoping that the evil forces would ultimately be destroyed and the prisoners set free. Many of the ghetto prisoners perceived that the only means available to them of opposing the will of their accursed German warders was to maintain some form of Torah study, along with keeping the mitzvos so that the Jewish character would not be destroyed.

Toward this end, I organized a small secret group of men who undertook to find ways and means of obtaining flour so that they could bake matzos and fulfill, at the very least, the mitzva of eating an olive-sized piece of matza on Passover Eve. One member of the group was Moshe Goldkorn—may G-d avenge him—a Polish Jew who had escaped the German murderers and found his way to Lithuania, only to be cast into the Kovno Ghetto along with us. This man labored in the Jordan Brigade and came into contact with Lithuanians with whom he could barter for flour.

Our next problem was how to get the flour into the ghetto, since the Germans guarded each one of the entrances, and were especially careful that no food, from potatoes to bread, should get in through the gates undetected.

But Goldkorn took it upon himself—literally at the risk of his life—to locate a source for flour, and from time to time to smuggle a small amount into the ghetto. His joy at being granted the merit of making it possible for Jews to fulfill the great mitzva of eating matza was enormous.

The flour was hidden in a secret place guarded very carefully so that no harm would come to it. Bit by bit, Goldkorn smuggled in enough flour to bake matzos for nearly 100 Jews, each of whom would receive one olive-sized piece of matzo. As Pessach drew nearer, the members of this group, at the risk of their lives, managed to bake the matzos in Block C, die Kleine Werkstaten [small workshops], where bread was baked for the ghetto families. With permission from the directors of the Werkstaten, this group managed to bake all the matzos over a 10-day period after preparing the oven according to Halacha.

But the happiest of them all was Goldkorn, for he had merited the privilege of bringing the flour in, not only for himself, but for the other Jews. At that time, it was indeed a very great mitzva that Goldkorn had fulfilled—providing the means for so many people to fulfill this aspect of the holiday of freedom in according with Halacha, inspiring hope in his fellow-Jews that they might yet live to celebrate this holiday with joy after the defeat of their German enemies.

Two days before Passover, Goldkorn was returning from his labor in the evening. He was stopped by German police and searched. A small bag of flour was found on his person. When the Germans realized that a Jew, despite their strict orders to bring no food into the ghetto, had dared violate their edict, they beat him violently and viciously all along his entire body, but the worst of it was that they broke all of his teeth. Yes this Jew, throughout all of his suffering, accepted it with love for his Creator, knowing that he had made it possible for so many others to fulfill a precious mitzva. Afterward, Goldkorn came to me with a very serious problem. As he spoke, he broke into tears. “With my broken teeth, how can I fulfill the mitzva of eating an olive-sized piece of matza? Since I come from a chassidic family, whose custom is never to eat matza that is soaked (gebroktz) on Pessach, how can I break that custom now? Is there any way for me to fulfill the mitzva of eating matza?”

Response: The tradition of not soaking matza is a stringency. Halacha does not forbid soaking matza. I allowed the questioner to soak the matza in water even though he was descended from Chassidim whose custom was not to eat soaked matza on Pessach—because he had no other way of fulfilling the mitzva, a mitzva for which he had risked his life. I did however instruct him to obtain permission from a beis din of three people which would annul the implicit vow of the tradition of his forbears that he had upheld all his life not to eat soaked matza on Pessach.

After we set up a beis din which annulled his “vow,” he proceeded to fulfill the mitva of eating an olive’s bulk of matza together with all the others who, thanks to him, fulfilled this mitzva. Although his whole body was aching and scarred from the vicious beating the German animals had inflicted upon him, there was no end to his joy and his thanks to G-d for granting him the privilege of eating matza despite his wounds and his broken teeth.

Donning Tefilin Before Bar Mitzva

Question: In the ghetto hell, we discovered that the main design of the Germans was to strip away our divine image and to show the world that Jews were a subhuman species whose blood could be shed with fear of punishment; that killing a Jew was like killing a fly: not only had no crime been committed, but you had done the world a favor by getting rid of a troublesome creature.

Part of their overall plan to develop a smooth-running machine for the annihilation of the Jews was the effort to instill in their victims a spirit of despondency so pervasive and deep that it would destroy whatever sense of hope we Jews might have, and leave nothing but broken shells to be led like cattle and sheep to the slaughter.

That is why I took it upon myself to encourage and inspire the brokenhearted, to inject within them the spark of hope, the belief that HaShem, the G-d of the Jews, would turn away His fury, heed our prayers, and not leave us in the hands of our enemies.

I organized a group of boys called Tiferes Bachurim, whom I taught Torah and the fear of G-d, implanting in them the seeds for eternal living that would sprout from doing G-d’s will wholeheartedly.

Among the boys in the Tiferes Bachurim was an extraordinary boy from Kovno named Shereshevsky who dedicated himself totally to the study of Torah. Even though he was not yet bar mitzva, he was as precise as an adult in his fulfillment of mitzvos. This extraordinary boy asked me if he might be permitted to don tefilin, despite the fact that his bar mitzva was 3 months away.

When I fathomed the simple sincerity of this boy’s request, tears gushed from my eyes. I could not help citing the words of the prophet Yirmeyohu, “Who would grant that my head be water, my eyes a source of tears that I could day and night bewail the dead of my nation, for death has come up in our windows, has entered our houses, to destroy the youth outside, our chosen ones from the streets.”

Response: I ruled that that precious child who had such a great desire to merit the privilege of fulfilling this mitzva because he feared that he might not live to fulfill it if he waited to reach 13, certainly had authorization for donning tefilin. I relied on the opinions that permit a minor to don tefilin if he knows to guard them in cleanliness. This was certainly applicable to the Shereshevsky boy who had already demonstrated his fear of G-d and was a Talmud student aware and capable of maintaining the degree of bodily cleanliness required to don tefilin.

Moreover, since he was three months short of his thirteenth birthday, I relied on the prevailing custom that a boy don tefilin 2 or 3 months before his bar mitzva.

Although I had ruled that he might don the tefilin even though he was still a minor, I warned him that if he should find himself with nine other Jews who wished to count him as the tenth for a minyan, he was obligated to let them know that he was not yet old enough to be counted into a minyan.

New edicts by the German taskmasters were issued against us every day; especially upon Jewish children. Who could assure this boy that he would ever reach the age of 13 to fulfill the mitzva? This was why he could not wait to don tefilin.

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