Sukkot and Simchat Torah

Chassidic children in the street of a village, holding lulavs and etrogs (palm frond and citron)

A Sukkah in the Hell of Plaszow

One day that Sukkot, I met a friend of my brother who worked as a carpenter in the Holzbetrieb (woodworking workshop). He looked around.

"I want to show you something you'll be glad to see," he said.

"What is it?" I asked anxiously.

"Follow me. Keep a discreet distance from me, and be careful."

I obeyed excitedly, not knowing what to expect. He led me to the Holzbetrieb. Outside the enclosure was a pile of branches and boards of various lengths and widths. He took me to the back of the pile. One one side was a little mound; on the other was a small heap of objects upon which the wood had been laid in disarray.

I could not believe my eyes. "A sukkah!" I cried, overwhelmed.

"Yes, a real kosher sukkah. You should see the men line up to enter the sukkah at night and say the blessing leishev ba'sukkah (to sit in the sukkah)."

I spent all that night dreaming about this most beautiful sukkah I had ever seen, standing there in the hell of Plaszow. It was made of the most previous materials in the world - love, devotion, and sacrifice. I dreamed, too, of those long queues of men, each risking his life to enter the sukkah, say his blessing, and thank the Almighty for permitting him to observe His commandments and sit, if only for a moment, in His presence.

"Oh G-d," I prayed, "may You, too, finally erect for us the sukkah You promsimed: Sukkat Shalom (the Temple). Please, Oh Merciful One, spread upon us Your sanctuary of compassion and peace."

(To Vanquish the Dragon, Pearl Benisch)

The Hoshana prayer in a prayer book from northern Italy

A Sukkot prayer book from the Lodz Ghetto. Written in the margins is a description of the destruction in the ghetto

Simchat Torah in the Lodz Ghetto

Dancing on Simchat Torah in the Plaszow Camp

The test of faith of the chassidic rebels is witnessed by the two brothers, Mendel and Moshe Brachtfeld, survivors of Wieliczka who are now in America.

In 1941 I lived in Wieliczka - Krasno a suburb of Wieliczka, (the Polish city of salt) according to Mandel Brachtfeld, where about twenty young Ger chassidim were hiding ina cellar. They were closed in and engaged in Torah study day and night. My sister cooked for them from time to time a dish of vegetables, carrots, etc., and took the pot down to the cellar through a small porthole. After that, they all fled to the Krakow Ghetto and hid in the destroyed study hall of the Bikur Cholim group on Limanovskiko Street. There they were once discovered by the deputy commander of the Jewish Police, Moshe Feiler. But he was so impressed by the boys, that he left them to their own devices and did not reveal their hiding place to anyone. When the Krakow Ghetto was liquidated, I hid in the attic of an abandoned house. The Nazis followed me and I was caught.. They found a chasidic sash in my pocket, and one of the policemen said to the Nazis: "This is a chassidic man"! If so, we will take you to the "Usmaka" (cell number eight in the prison) to the chassidic men!"

This is how I met again with a group of Ger chassidim, in the cells of the prison from where everyone was taken to be killed; they recited Psalms, taught Torah by heart. Even the free prisoners treated them with respect.

In the beginning there were those who mocked them: "Crazy people!" But when they got to know the purity of their hearts and the strength of their faith, everyone was impressed by them. One day, they were transferred to a torture camp near Postkow. They remembered that it was the day of Simchat Torah and snuck into an abandoned study hall. One of them risked taking out a Torah scroll secretly from the SS warehouses, where everything was in order and sorted. And they danced with immense joy in honor of Simchat Torah. The commander of all the camps in the Krakow area was Goeth, the terrible sadist who had a prayer shawl sewn into riding pants and torn pieces of desecrate Torah scrolls used for all kinds of despicable purposes. And these where the young chassidim who risked their lives to steal the Torah scroll from his warehouses.

(Research file - Yad Vashem)

Sukkot 5705 (1944)

Immediately after Yom Kippur, the block head of block 51 came to me and informed me that he wanted to organize a sukkah. I was convinced that he was joking. How is it possible? Among so many predatory dogs that never stop barking and biting, will we build a sukkah under their backs?

But the man meant it with complete seriousness. And he had an area for his plan. Since behind block 28, on the other side of the fence, there were several rows of barrels, we would use them to form three walls. He would place a layer of reeds and some straw on them, and thus a kosher sukkah, according to Jewish law, would be erected.

I listened to his bold plan with the consent that involved risking my life, due to the location of these barrels that stood on the other side of the fence, an area that bordered SS buildings, and moving around there was forbidden, under pain of death. The place of our sukkah was surrounded by an iron wire and entry there was forbidden and I had doubts about saying the blessing to sit in the sukkah because it is dangerous to be there. However, because of the dearness of the mitzvah that was done with devotion, we recited the blessing to sit in the sukkah. And a lot of people ate an olive-sized portion of food there, going in and out, in secret and in fear of punishment, and with the joy in our hearts as we were privileged to keep the mitzvah of the sukkah.

(Bitter Leaves - Bitter leaves - An Authentic Documentation by Rabbi Yehoshua Moshe Aharonson z"l)

Sukkot in the Westerbork camp. Children sitting around the table in a decorated barrack. Holy books are on the table

And We Were Commanded to Sit in the Sukkah

The bones are depleted and broken and the head droops limply. But the soul is still flourishing… They have nothing left in the world, but in the forefront of their minds is how to observe the mitzvah of the sukkah...

Manis testified before the writer and Holocaust researcher Rabbi Moshe Prager z"l, and the same words are written in the book "Those Who Never Yielded".

It was not an easy problem for us, how to arrange a Sukkah in the Gerlitz camp, which is in Lower Silesia. We stuck to all kinds of tricks and took advantage of all kinds of possibilities. Between the large barracks of the camp there were "lifts," empty containers, which no one knew for what purpose the Germans kept them. But for us it was an exceptional opportunity. On the eve of Sukkot, some of us snuck into one "lift", we broke its ceiling, and this was a completely unpleasant action, because any kapo could have caught us in the act.

After that, the problem still remained: "And where would we get schach (branches for the roof) from?" In this regard, too, an unexpected opportunity arose for us. We discovered such types of plants in the field, which in Polish are called "sloncnik". We cut down a lot of plants and planted them on stilts mounted on the roof of the "lift". Indeed, the question remained: was this sukkah kosher according to Jewish law? Nevertheless, we felt an immense mental need to risk ourselves and suddenly go into this sukkah, on the first night of "the time of our joy" (a reference to the holiday of Sukkot), in order to solemnly bless the blessing "shehechiyanu" (that we were granted life).

Indeed, quite a few of the inmates of the camp used this sukkah for all seven days of the holiday. However, it was discovered on Hoshana Raba (one of the days of Sukkot). Someone among the camp guards followed us and called out the whole crew of the approaching Germans. In a flood, they fell on the sukkah, while we were all gathered inside it. My G-d, the blows that the wicked Amalekites beat us with at that time are still fresh and well preserved in my memory and also engraved in my bones… However, they did not get what they wanted. They beat us mercilessly and interrogated us under threats and torture, to reveal to them, who actually was the "rebel" who initiated the establishment of the sukkah inside the camp, but nobody revealed the secret!…

Do you think that the beatings depressed us? Not at all! On the contrary! Precisely the fact that we were able to bring the firstborn of the devils out of his tranquility, proved to us how great the value of our mitzvah of sukkah is! The Holy One, blessed be He, "poured heat upon us", like what is written in the Gemara, in the portion on idolatry, but we did not kick the sukkah, as the gentiles did….

(Tablets and Broken Tablets - Rabbi Yechiel Menachem Manis Zytnitski z"l)

A Simchat Torah flag from the 1940s

A Sukkah in Auschwitz

"In order that your future generations should know that I had the children of Israel live in booths (sukkahs) when I took them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your G-d."

A sukkah in Auschwitz? Anyone who knows what Auschwitz was must find it hard to believe that there was a sukkah there. First, the SS eyes were open to everything; how was it possible to build a Sukkah without them sensing anything? Second, our superiors inside the camp, who were also prisoners themselves, some of them gentiles, because there were such people there, would not allow us to build a Sukkah. And one more thing, how one would build a sukkah in Auschwitz? And yet in Auschwitz there was a sukkah.

There was a pile of unused bunks in one of the lots between the barracks. Someone turned one bunk into a sukkah by adding some planks taken from another bunk. He made the schach (branches for the roof) by placing several pieces of wood over the top floor of the bunk. In this way, no one noticed anything unusual, and certainly those who did not know did not imagine that there was a sukkah there. I myself doubted the kosherness of this sukkah since it was impossible to sleep in it, and I remembered the Jewish law that such a sukkah is also not kosher for eating (From a clarification I did after this, it became clear that the sukkah was indeed kosher).

As I have already mentioned in other cases, the phenomenon of observing a mitzvah in any type of conditions has a supreme spiritual heroism in it, and it arouses great wonder. The Jew sees in front of him, almost without respite, the flames rising from the crematorium chimneys, thinking that it is possible that he himself may soon become one of them, and yet he does not forget that even at such a time one must build a sukkah for His great name. Blessed are you Israel, who is like you!?

The mitzvah of sukkah comes to remind us of the watchfulness of the Holy One, blessed be He, over Israel, that even when our ancestors were in the vast and terrible desert, He did not forget them and did not take His eyes off of them. That is why we were commanded every year to sit in the sukkah so that it would remind us of all these graces of the Holy One, blessed be He, lest we forget them.

However, in Auschwitz this commandment had a special meaning. We remembered that not only were our ancestors in a vast and terrible desert, but that on that Sukkot holiday we ourselves were in a vast and terrible desert. The sukkah we sat in was not only a reminder of what was, but it was also an encouragement to us for what would be. Even though it seemed as if G-d had left the earth and abandoned his sons to live there. By fulfilling this commandment, we testified that we continue to believe in Him watching over us. It is true that the measure of judgment was stretched upon us in full force, but we believed that behind it was hidden the measure of mercy which keeps the embers of Israel from being extinguished.

On the last day of the holiday, I enetred the sukka and I received the "Yehi Ratzon" (May it be G-d's will) prayer, that is customary to say at the end of Sukkot. A special prayer was on my lips, that in the next year we would merit to sit in the sukka as free men.

(Your Rod and Your Staff - Reflections and Thoughts after the Holocaust, Rabbi Sinai Adler, published by Ganzach Kiddush Hashem)

A notice from the rabbinical court in Krakow warning about building sukkahs that do not fit the requirements of Jewish law. Signed by Rabbi Yehoshua Feivel Frankel-Teomim, Rabbi Simcha Frankel-Teomim, and Rabbi Shaul Etinger

The Dancing on Simchat Torah

It was the last Simchat Torah in the Warsaw Ghetto, Simchat Torah of 5703 (1942). Only a small handful, about three thousand Jews, remained from the large gathering place in Poland of half a million Jews.

About 15 Jews gathered at Rabbi Menachem Ziemba's residence for the hakafos (dancing in circles with the Torah) and prayer. Before the reading, they took out the Torah books from the ark, and surrounded the table. They were all broken people, stripped and bereaved of their family members. Their hearts were full of sorrow. The traditional verses that had been sung, were said in grief.

Amongst the worshippers was Rabbi Yehuda Leib Orlean, the great educator, who was the head of the Bais Yaakov teachers seminar, but he was bereaved. His wife and children had been killed by the Germans.

Suddenly, a child of about 12 entered the room. This was a big deal as there were no more children in the ghetto. All were exterminated in Treblinka. This only child stood, took a siddur in his hand, and joined in the prayer.

When the worshipers walked heavily with the Torah scrolls and walked in circles as it were, Rabbi Orlean suddenly jumped to the boy, hugged the Torah scroll in his arm, pressed both to his heart, and began to roar in a heartbreaking voice: "A young Jew with the Holy Torah", and he broke into a long dance with the boy and with the Torah, a dance full of chasidic enthusiasm, as he loudly repeated his calls "a young Jew with the holy Torah".

The people rushed to the sight, and from it a circle of dancers formed around this trio. The great educator with the child and the Torah book.

It was the last Simchat Torah dance of the last Jews of Warsaw.

(Introduction to Rabbi Yehuda Leib Orlean's book, Problems in Education)

Simchat Torah in a Cyprus DP camp

Jews on Sukkot in a synagogue in the Lodz Ghetto

Isaac Herzberg on his way to the synagogue in a detention camp with a lulav (palm frond) at his side

Sukkahs in a residential courtyard in Warsaw

Shaking the four species (3 parts of the lulav plus the etrog) in the Lodz Ghetto

Jews on Sukkot in a synagogue in the Lodz Ghetto

Buying etrogs (citrons) at a DP camp in Germany

Jews cutting branches for schach (the roof of the Sukkah) in Raguva, Lithuania

Jews, wrapped in their prayer shawls, pray on Hoshana Raba (one of the days of Sukkot) in a synagogue in the Lodz Ghetto

Survivors in a sukkah in Hamburg, Germany. Rabbi Singer and Avraham Malach from Zwolen (first from left) can be seen

The Secret Sukkah

This is what happened in the Plaszow camp, on the first night of Sukkot in the year 5704. This "month of the loyal ones" became the month of the greatest killing in our camp. The oppressors demanded sacrifices from us for every holiday and occasion. Even so, what did the remaining Jews bother and worry about? They thought of ways to observe the mitzvah of Sukkah and bless the blessing of "Shehechiyanu" (that we were given life) for and the blessing for "the time of our happiness"!

On the first night of the holiday, a secret march occured in one of the corners of the camp. Where did the march go? To the truly temporary sukkah, which was erected in the camp's "tree square". The workers who worked in this department built a "warehouse" in it during the day, as if to store their work tools. The "warehouse" was without a roof and was covered with kosher schach (branches for a roof) accumulated from the remains of the sawdust, and this sukkah attracted all the prisoners of the camp. The news was passed by word of mouth, and the Jews risked leaving their barracks and heading towards the secret sukkah. I was also among those heading there. For one moment I stopped inside the "warehouse"; I said "Shehechiyanu" and left through the other side. There was no time to linger, for the march continued on.

(Those Who Never Yielded, from the testimony of Shmuel Lifshitz)

Jews selling schach (branches for the roof of the Sukkah) in the Jewish quarter of Berlin, Germany

Jews from Kalisz checking willow branches before Sukkot

A Jew holding a lulav and etrog (palm frond and citron) prays in a synagogue in the Lodz Ghetto

Sukkot in the Kovno Ghetto

Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur were sad days this year. In honour of Sukkot, they erected several Sukkots made of planks with covered with schach (branches used as the sukkah roof). Lulav and etrog (palm frond and citron) were also found. Quite a few Jews feasted their hearts out in sukkahs.

When I went to the meeting in the morning… I came across a sukkah that had been set up next to a large block of houses. I wondered about the will of the Jews to live in the ghetto. And here it seems that a sharp knife is placed on their necks and yet the people do not lose their courage, do not cease to be Jews. In the afternoon, I was called urgently to the workshops, where Germans from the "Stadt-Commissar" office were waiting. I hurried to go there. On my way to the workshops I came across another sukkah. Its door was wide open, and one could see a bearded Jew inside with a black hat on his head. He was dressed in holiday clothes, and his face was beaming with joy. Several other people were sitting in the sukkah. They sang a chasidic tune and accompanied it with clapping and stomping. They sang with enthusiasm and devotion as if they did not exist in the world of ghettos and German rulers…

When they saw me, a bearded Jew came out of the sukkah. He grabbed my sleeves and asked a simple question: "What are you doing near us? Shalom aleichem (peace be upon you)! And a happy holiday!" He was in an uplifted mood and even looked a bit "warmed up". It seems that he had sipped a drink in honor of the holiday. He didn't listen to my answer, that I was in a hurry to the meeting and they were waiting for me in the workshop.

"Have you already sat in the Sukkah this year?" The bearded Jew asked me. "No," I answered, "I didn't have time. Excuse me, I'm in a hurry." The Jew, his name was Zusman, and he is by the way an acquaintance of mine, a merchant from Kovno and a chasid. He looked at me strangely, as if I were a heretic. He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the sukkah. "Please come in" - he thundered. And again: "I'm in a hurry to the meeting on general matters." My words had no effect on the bearded Jew. He said: "Nothing. Just for a moment." He forced me to sit on a bench in the sukkah.

I had no choice but to sit. I said "Shalom Aleichem" to the other Jews in the sukkah, and looked around me. Zusman asked his guests: "Do you know who the man is? It's Golov. You know, from the committee."

The Jews answered in unison: "You ask if we know? Of course we know from our ministers." And everyone said hello to me. I told them: "I'm not a minister at all. I'm a Jew like everyone else. A Jew from the ghetto. Now excuse me Jews, now I really have to go. They called me to the workshops."

But Zusman was in himself. He gestured to his wife through the window of the sukkah and she immediately entered the sukkah with wine and a cake in her hands. He was a bearded joyous Jewish, whose son was reaching bar mitzvah that day. He asked me to drink a toast and say the blessing "shehakol" (that all was created by the word of G-d). And of course, he asked me to taste the cake. While speaking, the Jews broke into tune again.

"If I said, 'My foot has slipped,' Your kindness, O Lord, supported me." These words had a special and deep meaning in the sukkah in the ghetto. The Jews in the sukkah sang with devotion and faith in the grace of G-d, and I forgot myself and my collective mission and joined in the music and faith.

For the whole day I felt the good vibes of the holiday atmosphere in sukkah of the chassidim. I admired them; I envied them for their ability to free themselves from the burden of the ghetto, from the daily problems that oppressed the individual and the community.

"If I said, 'My foot has slipped,'" sang Jews full of faith, "Your kindness, O Lord, supported me." Praised is the believer.

(The Ghetto Day by Day, Avraham Tori)

A Jew from Warsaw carrying a lulav and etrog (palm frond and citron) on the wat to prayers

A store selling the four species (3 parts of the lulav plus the etrog) in Berlin, Germany

Members of the Noar HaTzioni youth group dancing on Simchat Torah with a Torah in the Lodz Ghetto. Baruch Feikirsch can be seen at the back.