Samuel Newman (names changed) was born in the city of Lodz in Poland.
He rarely took up much of my time; for Sam was a “three days a year Jew”.
He rarely showed up in Shul besides the High Holidays and therefore except for wishing me a “Happy New Year” our paths did not cross too often.
I would give him a call once in a while and occasionally dropped in at his house; however, our encounters were brief, polite and anything but intense or intimate.
That changed when Sam was diagnosed with cancer.
I reached out to him and attempted to be a regular visitor at his modest home.
After a while we became quite friendly and after seeing the blue tattooed numbers on his forearm I decided to make sure that before Sam left this world I would know the story behind the numbers.
Mr. Newman revealed to me that he was from a “Chaddishe Shtub” (Chassidic Home) and that as a child he had peyos and learned in the Keser Torah Yeshiva in Lodz which was one of the dozens of Yeshivas founded and personally supported by the Radomsker Rebbe Rabbi Shlomo Chanoch Hakohen Rabinowicz (1882–1942).
He continued to live a Chassidishe life style until 1939 when darkness descended over Poland. In a short amount of time, all the Keser Torah Yeshivas ceased to exist; the Rebbe and his family were murdered on August 1st 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto and Samuel Newman found himself in the Gehinom known as Auschwitz.
As his condition deteriorated, I began to visit him almost daily.
One day he asked me if I would be interested in seeing the various memorabilia he had from the war years. I jumped at the opportunity and he opened a drawer on his desk filled with dust filled objects.
They all looked like German medals and indeed they were. Samuel Newman explained to me that after the liberation, the Nazi guards at Auschwitz shed their uniforms and he and other former prisoners collected some of their now worthless medals. He even asked me if I wanted any of them. The thought of owning an object with the Nazi insignia repulsed me and I politely declined.
Just as Samuel Newman was about to close the drawer he pulled out one envelope.
He slowly and delicately removed a worn and faded piece of paper. As he unfolded it I quickly recognized it as a page from the Haggadah Shel Pesach.
It was just one bletyl, one page.
“What is that and why do you have it?” I asked.
Samuel Newman took a deep breath and said…
“When we were deported to the Ghetto I was able to quickly grab just one sefer. I chose the Haggadah Shel Pesach of my great-grandfather. Later when the Ghetto was liquidated and I was in Auschwitz, I took the Haggadah with me. I hid it on my person. Eventually, most of its pages were torn away; however, one page of the Haggadah remained with me, the page of with ten Makos (plagues).
I held on to the bletyl of the Haggadah at all times. I slept with it; I went out to the work detail with it I always kept it with me.
On Erev Pesach; we decided to have a Seder. We had no wine so we used a little water and mixed in some reddish dirt for the four cups. For the Matzah we found discarded flour and attempted to bake it on the top of a cement mixer. And for the Marror we looked at our tattooed numbers; nothing could be more effective. It was then that I revealed to my fellow Yidden the one bletyl- one page- one daf -from the Haggadah. All of those in sitting on the floor in our cold barracks could not believe their eyes; the page was passed from hand to hand and each person caressed and kissed the tattered paper as if it was their long lost only child. Tears ran down their cheeks as they could not believe as they were actually holding this worn and torn bletyl which represented a world which once was and would never again be.
Suddenly in the middle of ‘our seder’ the door threw open and in charged the cruelest SS guard at the camp; we simply referred to him as ‘the Vilde Chaya’ (the wild animal).
He began swinging his truncheon indiscriminately as we scattered back to our bunks. Somehow he saw my page from the Haggadah. He took his club and whipped it with all his might across my mouth; blood splattered all over the barracks.
“You Jew swine, how dare you smuggle Jewish contraband and propaganda into our pure and pristine camp? I should kill you right now; however, as you know we Germans are civilized not like you Jews. If you can clean up your filthy contraband and get it out of my sight this instant I will spare your worthless Jewish life.”
My head was spinning as blood was spurting from my mouth; however, somehow with G-d given strength I picked up my now blood soaked bletyl and hid it in the pile of hay we referred to as our beds.
I kept it with me for the rest of my stay at Auschwitz and when on January 27, 1945 soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates of Auschwitz Concentration Camp the bletyl was still with me.
I carried it me in the DP camps and now here it is.”
One word was saturated with blood; it was the word “Daam” (blood), the first of the plagues.
Samuel Newman held the paper in the same loving manner he held it in 1944.
Sixty years had passed.
Samuel Newman had long ceased practicing Judaism.
His only son lived in Arizona and was married to a non-Jew.
There would never be anymore Chassidishe Yidden descending from Samuel Newman.
Indeed, there would never be any Jews descending from Samuel Newman.
As he caressed the page he said to me, “Rabbi, I am not scared of death. I met the angel of death often in Auschwitz; he does not scare me. In fact, I am looking forward to meeting my Creator; I have a number of questions which I have been waiting over sixty years to ask Him. This page from the Haggadah is going to be exhibit ‘A’. Rabbi, please promise me that when I leave this world you will place this bletyl in my kever. I need it to show it as evidence upstairs. I am looking forward to finally getting some answers to the questions which have been percolating for over six decades.”
I nodded.
Ten days later, I was standing in front of Samuel Newman’s unfilled grave as next to me was his only son Martin who could not have recited the Kaddish even if he was inclined to do so.
As we began to fill the grave, I quietly and unobtrusively, slipped the only existing page of the Haggadah Shel Pesach from the Auschwitz Seder of 1944 into the grave.
As we were departing the ceremony, I casually asked Martin when his flight back to Arizona was; he replied that he bought a special VIP ticket which allowed him to board any flight back to the Tucson for the next 24 hours.
He proudly told me that he just had to show up at the airport, show them his VIP ticket and he could get on any flight of the day.
Then Martin turned to me and asked, “Rabbi, I noticed you placed some withered and stained paper into my father’s grave. Is that some sort of Jewish rite of passage to heaven?”
I turned to Martin and simply said, “It is a rite of passage. However, very, very few people merit this particular ‘right’. Let’s just say, it is your father’s VIP ticket. When he gets upstairs he just has to show them the tattered blood stained page of the Haggadah he kept with him. All doors will open and all lines will disappear; your father will be granted a first class seat without any questions.”
Martin looked at me and smiled as he said, “that’s good, I am a glad he will have a choice seat.”
“Martin, you don’t have to worry for a second, your father will have a first class seat, and there is no question about it.”
