Ahead of Hanukka, Yad Vashem has created an online exhibition of ‘silent witnesses.’
By JERUSALEM ROAST STAFFA brass hannukia from Tranistria(photo credit: COURTESY OF YAD VASHEM ARTIFACTS COLLECTION)
The story of Hanukka symbolizes the resilience and continuity of Judaism throughout its troubled history. This is reflected in the way this holiday was observed throughout Europe by all types of Jews before, during and in the aftermath of the Holocaust.In advance of the Hanukka holiday, Yad Vashem created an online exhibition of photos, artifacts and testimonies from its collections connected to this special festival. Each item carries with it the personal story of the people behind it, making them “silent witnesses” of the tragedy that befell the Jewish people during the Holocaust.“Hanukka – The Festival of Lights” is featured on Yad Vashem’s website (www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/hanukkah/index.aspA dreidel from KezmarokAlis-Ester Goldmann was born in 1933 in Moravska-Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, to Menakhem-Emanuel, a cattle trader, and his wife, Jolana. Her brother, Shmuel, was three years older, and the family followed a traditional Jewish lifestyle.In 1939, German soldiers marched past their home and looted their property. As Menakhem and Jolana were Slovakian, they fled to Bratislava. However, the city was ruled by the Hlinka Guard, the military arm of the ruling fascist totalitarian party under the leadership of the notorious Jozef Tiso. Antisemitism was rife, and decrees were issued against the Jews, who were forced to wear a yellow star on their clothing. The family decided to flee once again and in 1942 arrived in Kezmarok, Menakhem’s birthplace, where they tried to resume a normal life. The community arranged schooling for Ester and Shmuel, despite the fact that there were fewer than 10 Jewish children in the town, and even manufactured dreidels for them in advance of the Hanukka holiday.In September 1944, the SS arrived in the town and imprisoned the Jews in an improvised camp. Two months later, they were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. Before she left, Jolana entrusted a suitcase of their most precious belongings with Christian neighbors. Among the personal effects was this dreidel, cast by a local Jewish teacher.On arrival in Auschwitz, the men and women were separated. Ester remained with her mother. When Jolana was sent to work, Ester stayed behind with the children in the camp.In February 1945, Jolana and Ester were taken to Bergen-Belsen. Starving, Ester stole beetroots from the camp kitchen in order to survive. At liberation, the 12-yearold weighed just 17 kg. After Jolana died, Ester was placed in an orphanage together with other children from Bergen-Belsen. Refusing to join the children for recuperation in Sweden, Ester returned to Czechoslovakia; there she discovered that her father and brother had returned to Kezmarok.In 1949, Ester immigrated to Israel together with her father and brother – bringing the suitcase and the dreidel with her.A brass hanukkia from TransnistriaFollowing the German invasion of the USSR in July 1941, Transnistria became the “dumping ground” for tens of thousands of Jews from Bessarabia, Bukovina and northern Moldavia regions of Romania. Many of them died from starvation, hunger, overwork and abysmal living conditions.This brass hanukkia was made by some of the Jewish deportees in Transnistria during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem received this artifact from the Federation of Jewish Communities in Bucharest, Romania.A wooden hanukkia from WesterborkFollowing the Nazi rise to power, the Scheinowitz family fled from Leipzig, Germany, to Holland. In 1940, they were deported to Westerbork transit camp. While at the camp, Zelig Scheinowitz crafted a simple hanukkia from plywood for the use of his family. Thanks to his job as a baker in the camp, Zelig was able to save his entire family from deportation to the East. The family was liberated in 1945.The rabbi’s hanukkia from KielRabbi Dr. Akiva Posner served as the last rabbi of the community of Kiel, Germany (1924-1933). After he publicized a protest letter in the local press expressing indignation at posters that had appeared in the city, announcing “Entrance to Jews Forbidden,” Rabbi Posner was summoned by the chairman of the local branch of the Nazi party to participate in a public debate. The event took place under heavy police guard and was reported by the local press. When tension and violence in the city intensified, however, the rabbi responded to the pleas of his community to flee with his wife, Rachel, and their three children. Before their departure, Rabbi Posner was able to convince many of his congregants to leave as well, with a considerable number managing to escape to Eretz Yisrael or the United States.The Posner family left Germany in 1933 and arrived in Eretz Yisrael in 1934. Among their precious belongings was the hanukkia they used to light in Kiel – a picture of which was donated to Yad Vashem by the Mansbach family, Akiva and Rachel Posner’s descendants, together with the hanukkia itself. Both the photograph and the hanukkia are displayed in Yad Vashem’s Holocaust History Museum, and every year the Mansbach family takes home this treasured artifact in order to use it during the festival of Hanukka.
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