The Munich Chumash 5707 (1946/7) – Chumash Beraishit After the Holocaust

In honour of the week of starting to read Beraishit (Genesis) again, I returned to Ganzach Kiddush Hashem’s beloved archive, and once again, my hands rested upon the old, beautiful Chumash (Pentateuch), which moves me anew every single time.

By: Yaakov Rosenfeld

This Chumash was printed in Munich exactly eighty years ago, and the survivors flocked to its distribution points with a love and a thirst that defy explanation. An outsider could never comprehend the thirst and the yearning of an orphaned, frail, and battered boy, alone in his world, for an ancient book. An outsider could never grasp this connection: a soul longing for these black letters, for bound volumes, for sacred, beloved words.

This Chumash was printed under the auspices of the American government, led by President Truman, which provided a printing press to the Displaced Persons camps in Germany. This press served as the cornerstone for the printing of sacred texts, a project that began anew right then and there, against all odds.

Here I sit in the reading room of Ganzach Kiddush Hashem, holding this Chumash in my hands. Once again, we begin from Bereishit just as they did: our ancestors and our teachers, the Holocaust survivors, who began again from Bereishit (i.e. from the beginning). They buried their grief deep within their hearts, entered makeshift synagogues, and using this very Chumash, began the Torah anew, with love and deep emotion. They began to live once more – a new life.

An eyewitness recounted that when the Klausenburger Rebbe z”l lay in a hospital during the time of liberation, suffering from typhus, he held a Chumash in his hands. Despite his utter exhaustion from the grave illness, he eagerly consumed the weekly Torah portions – portions he had been unable to study while under siege and in dire distress. Perhaps it was a Chumash from this very edition?

I am reading the Hebrew introduction, and I find myself moved once again. Here it is before you; there is nothing to add:

Translation:

With G-d’s Help, Munich, Germany

Our enemies, who plotted and wrought such immense destruction upon the body of the Jewish People, failed to touch our spirit and our faith—not even to the slightest degree.

These “embers plucked from the fire” returned with heightened fervour to knock at the doors of our Torah, rediscovering a source of life that sustains and delivers them in every time of distress and peril.

Regrettably, those who sought the Divine, the youth among the few survivors, lacked the opportunity to delve deeply and “dig wells of living water,” due to a scarcity of books.

Thank G-d, we have succeeded this time in printing the crown jewel of holy books, the Chumash, to be distributed among the descendants of Yaakov and disseminated throughout the Jewish community.

On this occasion, we wish to express to the American people, and especially to the beloved President, our sentiments…

Harry S. Truman

Our warmest congratulations on behalf of the survivors — who owe their lives and liberation to you — with wishes for abundant happiness and great success.

On behalf of the Vaad HaHatzalah (Rescue Committee) in Germany,

Rabbi Aviezer Burstein, Rabbi Naftali Baruch (Chairman)

No less moving is the English introduction to the book. It states that this edition is dedicated to the beloved President Harry Truman. Looking back eighty years, we honour the wishes of the martyrs and heroes by also remembering with gratitude the then President of the United States, a man whom the Almighty appointed to lead the world’s greatest superpower. He performed extraordinary deeds for the surviving remnant of Israel, a people battered by war and grief, by opening the gates of the “Land of Freedom” to them, and by providing care and assistance to the tens of thousands of refugees then scattered across every corner of Europe. This support was not only physical and material, but also spiritual, emotional, and heartfelt.

Here are the blessings of gratitude to President Truman: