The Kosher Bookworm: A look back at April 11, 1945

The Kosher Bookworm

by Alan Jay Gerber

Issue of April 8, 2010/ 24 Nissan 5770

It is not everyday that we witness the utter defeat of tyranny. Nevertheless, next week we will commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald by American armed forces leading to the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Holocaust.

The anniversary gives us the opportunity to look back in time soon after Pesach, when liberation and the defeat of tyranny became hallmarks of our religious and national tradition.

The Exodus was not the only experience in tyranny that our people had in Egypt. In his exceptional work titled, “The Historical Haggadah,” Rabbi Nachman Cohen reminds us of the experience of an affluent Alexandrian Jewry, 30 years before the destruction of the second Temple, who were to be destroyed by the Roman viceroy, Flaccus. As detailed by the Jewish Biblical philosopher, Philo, the one million Jews of Alexandria were cut down by their Roman rulers in a fit of imperial rage in as cruel a manner as befit Roman rule.

One phrase cited by Rabbi Cohen caught my attention; take heed of their contemporary meaning:

“Once Flaccus saw that the attempt to violate the law prospered, he proceeded onwards to another exploit, namely, the utter destruction of our constitution. He reasoned that when all those things to which alone our life was anchored were cut away, namely, our national customs and our lawful political rights and social privileges, we might be exposed to the very extremity of calamity, without having any stay left to which we could cling for safety.”

Fast-forward 20 centuries. The victory over Nazism is given a first class presentation by noted military historian, Michael Hirsh, himself a veteran of US military service in Vietnam. In his recent book “The Liberators” Hirsh gives full vent to the searing experiences that our young and untutored American troops faced at the liberation of Buchenwald and numerous other Nazi slave labor camps in Germany during the closing days of the war.

In a heart-rending series of biographical sketches and interviews with many of those GI’s, the author graphically details the human and emotional trauma that many of them experienced and the horrific emotional and even spiritual toll this took on “our boys.” Flashbacks to the scenes they witnessed 65 years ago this Sunday remain vivid to many vets to this day.

One fact that left a sharp impression upon me was that many of our troops did not take Nazi prisoners after liberating the camps. Rather, they would routinely execute SS prisoners, especially those who had been concentration camp guards. Truth be told, this was to be a commonplace procedure.

We come to appreciate this behavior in retrospect when we consider the kid glove treatment modern day tyrannies experience at the hands of the formulators of America’s present-day foreign policy. Whether it is an Iran building up its nuclear capabilities and threatening to exterminate the six million Jews of Israel, or a communist regime in China bullying Google with threats of shutdown, we witness our government engaged in Munich-style appeasement.

The lessons that we can glean from the behavior of our troops, as detailed by Hirsh, point to an America of the past where tyranny knew no safe quarter. They instinctively knew when to resist and when to take the initiative to exterminate the handmaidens of the tyrant without the slightest hesitation or qualm of false conscience.

Our troops’ experiences in the camps lasted a few hours to a few days before they moved on, back to the battlefield in pursuit of the German army. Yet for many those fleeting moments were to serve as a moral benchmark for the rest of their lives, and as an inspiration for us to learn from and to remember for the rest of ours.

Hirsh provides first hand testimony to the blood and guts of the tyranny of National Socialism. It is for us to better appreciate our freedoms and to consider the fate experienced by the Jews in the Alexandria of Philo and the Jews of mid-twentieth century Europe, when their rights to freedom and liberty were brutally cut down.

Within 24 hours of the liberation of Buchenwald, the American people and the free world would have a new leader, Harry S Truman, who was to lead the American people and its allies to final victory in war and preside over America’s recognition of the State of Israel three years later. Such is the irony of history.