Summary of Rabbi Israel Meir Lau's Out of the Depths , livre ebook

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44 pages

English

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Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 I remember the first time I saw my father being beaten by the Nazis. It was in 1942, when I was five years old, and I was with my mother and brother in Piotrków, Poland. Father was standing in a crowd of Jews, men on one side, women and children on the other.
#2 The worst thing I endured during the Holocaust was not the hunger, the cold, or the beatings, but the humiliation. It is almost impossible to bare the helplessness of unjustified humiliation.
#3 The three of us melded together as one. We had to be completely silent and keep as close to Mother as possible. We had to be smuggled out under cover of darkness, as if we were part of her body.
#4 The three of us went out the door, but we were separated when one German noticed a bit more movement than expected. I was on the left side, my mother was on the right, and Shmuel was on the right side. The force of the blow hurled me and my mother into a puddle outside the synagogue.

Sujets

Autobiography

Biography

Jews

Jewish

Informations

Publié par	Everest Media LLC
Date de parution	11 mai 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9798822505049
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Insights on Rabbi Israel Meir Lau's Out of the Depths
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I remember the first time I saw my father being beaten by the Nazis. It was in 1942, when I was five years old, and I was with my mother and brother in Piotrków, Poland. Father was standing in a crowd of Jews, men on one side, women and children on the other.

#2

The worst thing I endured during the Holocaust was not the hunger, the cold, or the beatings, but the humiliation. It is almost impossible to bare the helplessness of unjustified humiliation.

#3

The three of us melded together as one. We had to be completely silent and keep as close to Mother as possible. We had to be smuggled out under cover of darkness, as if we were part of her body.

#4

The three of us went out the door, but we were separated when one German noticed a bit more movement than expected. I was on the left side, my mother was on the right, and Shmuel was on the right side. The force of the blow hurled me and my mother into a puddle outside the synagogue.

#5

My father, who had always been strong as a rock, was crying. He told us that when he had found out that Shmulek was in the synagogue by himself, separated from Mother and me, he realized that his son was destined for death.

#6

I never saw Father again after that night at our house in Piotrków. My memories of him are few. According to those who knew him, my father, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau, was a gifted speaker.

#7

The story of my family hiding from the Nazis is similar to the story of Moses hiding from Pharaoh’s daughter. I knew what a maikeh beating was and the reason for the voracious appetites of the Nazis’ dogs, which were kept starved. I understood that I had to keep quiet until the fury subsided.

#8

The author’s mother and him hid in an attic in Piotrków, and one day, the Germans came and searched the building. The author’s mother stole an apple from another Jew, and felt guilty for the rest of her life.

#9

I had to work in the Piotrków ghetto glass factory with my brother. I was in charge of a wooden cart with iron wheels that held some sixty bottles of water. I would push the cart into the factory, which was like a furnace.

#10

I was seven and a half years old when the Nazis took my father and brother away. For the next two years, I lived in the Piotrków ghetto, working and helping to feed the other Jews there.

#11

The most vivid memories I have of the Holocaust are of dogs, boots, and trains. My mother pushed me toward Naphtali, knowing that the Germans would separate us, and that he would be able to protect me better than she could.

#12

The hardest moment for me was when I was separated from my mother. I continued to hit and scream, What have you done to me. I want to be with Mother! I was taken to a labor camp in Poland, and my brother was taken to a concentration camp.

#13

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lau was the son of Rabbi Shmuel Yitzchak Schor, author of Minchat Shai, and one of the great responsa writers of his time. He was the rabbi of the community of Schatz in Romania, and later served in Prešov and Piotrków.

#14

My father, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Lau, was the leader of the Jewish community of Lvov, Poland. When the war began, he was ordered to destroy the tombstones in the local Jewish cemetery. He refused, and instead dug up his rabbi’s gravestone.

#15

One of my ancestors, Rabbi David Segal, was the rabbi of the town of Provizne, Galicia, and was extremely poor because the town barely supported him as its rabbi. One night, he was distracted from his studies by an excruciating toothache. He went to the pub owner, Zelig, and asked for some alcohol to ease his pain. Zelig gave him a glass of whiskey.

#16

The town of Provizne, where the rabbi lived, tried to get rid of all signs of the Jews, but they did not notice the Star of David below the chandelier at the synagogue entrance.

#17

I visited the town of Chrzanow, where my mother’s family was from, and the Jewish cemetery where Rabbi David Halberstam and his son Naphtali were buried. I was shocked to find that the man who kept the key to the cemetery was a descendant of Rabbi Naphtali.

#18

On November 26, 1944, the train stopped at a factory in Częstochowa, Poland, and the Nazis sent all the Jews there. We were left alone in the world, just the two of us.

#19

On the very first day, they took Naphtali to his assigned detail for forced labor. I spoke in Polish to the Nazi camp commandant, and explained that we had a right to live. Kiesling turned red with fury, and ordered that all eleven children be brought immediately to the Gestapo headquarters.

#20

After the battle for my life, I continued to hide in the barracks most of the time, while Naphtali was forced to work as a mechanic in the phosphate factory. I stored a little food in the barracks, offering it to Naphtali when he returned at night after work.

#21

Naphtali was taken in by the Chassidim, who treated him with love and care. He told them about his uncle, who had sent him the Bible, and they took him to the study hall of the Admor of Bobov, Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, who treated him with respect.

#22

In mid-January 1945, the inmates heard the sound of cannon fire surrounding the camp. The Nazis ordered them to evacuate the barracks and arrange themselves in rows of five men each, as usual. They gave them one loaf of bread for every three people in line.

#23

I was thrown into the first train car with women and children, and Naphtali was thrown into the last train car with men. We were on the same train, but at a great distance from each other. Naphtali was worried, and he had no idea how many cars separated us.

#24

The train journey to Buchenwald was long and difficult, but it was worth it. I was reunited with my brother, Naphtali, who had managed to open the train car door using a pin he had modified.

#25

The passengers argued about whether Buchenwald gassed people or not. Each had absorbed different pieces of information about the place.

#26

The camp held prisoners from many different nations, including Léon Blum, the socialist Jew who served as the prime minister of France in the 1930s, and Dr. Konrad Adenauer, who was sent to the camp for anti-Nazi activity but would be elected the first chancellor of West Germany in 1949.

#27

When I got out of the sack, one of the guards, also a prisoner, noticed me. He asked my brother what a boy like me was doing in a place meant for adult men only. My brother explained that this child had neither father nor mother, and the guard left me alone.

#28

The guard gave us the first authoritative proof of the methods of killing in the camp. He explained that all the Muselmänners died in the crematorium. Everyone who came to the camp became a Muselmann, and it didn’t matter if they were five or fifteen.

#29

The book was eventually lost, but fragments of it were to resurface repeatedly over time. In 1982, I traveled for the first time in my life to far-off Australia. A letter from a Mr. Haber, someone unknown to me, awaited me at my Melbourne hotel. The pages of a book were photocopied and given to me.

#30

The guards at Buchenwald were trained to not view the prisoners as human beings. They were to act like robots, disinfecting the men from head to toe. The Czechoslovakian doctor who gave the vaccination shots to the prisoners was not a Jew, but he did not want to hurt me. He injected me with half the contents of the syringe, but with his quick thinking, stubbornness, and human spark, he saved my life.

#31

The Nazis rushed us into a long tunnel with an arched ceiling from which showerheads dangled. We looked up in shock, knowing what showers in the Nazi camps meant. We knew that we would not get out of there alive, and would never see each other again.

#32

I was taken to Block 52, and when I awoke, it was still dark outside. Torrents of freezing water were pouring over my body. The cold was terrifying, but I survived by sticking close to my brother.

#33

The most difficult challenge in my life was the separation from those I loved. I had to move to the new block near the camp gate, and I was the youngest of the residents.

#34

I was the mascot of Block 8, and I lived in relative comfort compared to my brother. I had a guardian angel named Feodor, who would steal potatoes to make me hot soup.

#35

In 1989, when I traveled to the then–Soviet Union, I met with several elderly Jews in the Kol Ya’akov Synagogue on Arkhipova Street in Moscow. They asked me what they needed and what they would like me to say on their behalf if the Soviets allowed me to speak in the Kremlin.

#36

The leader of the Soviet delegation to the synagogue, Menteshashvili, promised that if the Jews were given a separate cemetery, the Soviets would also give them Jewish schools.

#37

Despite being a Polish child, I was still treated as a prisoner.