This year we mark the 80th anniversary of the
Wannsee Conference, where the leaders of Nazi Germany formulated the Final
Solution. The evil plot culminated with the perishing of one third of our
people. A few years later, the perpetrators met the same fate after being
convicted at the Nuremberg trials. Their mode of execution, hanging, was that
same as that of Haman’s 10 sons in Megillas Esther: hanging. Nor
was this the only parallel with the Megillah.
“Hashem will have war with Amalek every generation.” (Shmos 17:16) A student once asked the
Brisker Rav if the Vilna Gaon’s association of Amalek with Germany could
be substantiated, to which the Rav replied, “Any nation that adopts the persona
or legacy of any other nation, like Amalek, indeed becomes that nation.”[1]
Indeed, we see in our own day how the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael often adopt the
persona and savagery of the Philistines (anglicized as “Palestinians”), the
nation they seek to reincarnate for Israel’s destruction. The Nuremberg trials
demonstrate a similar replay of history. As we relive Purim this year, it would
behoove us to remember a Purim victory at Nuremberg and to pray for Hashem’s
victory over the Amalekites of our day.
Nuremberg Hangings in the Megillah
Dr. Moshe Katz in his book, CompuTorah: Hidden Codes in
the Torah, illustrates the association of Purim with the Nuremberg
trials hangings of the Final Solution culprits. The Megillah describes
how, at Haman’s downfall, Esther was granted her request to hang his 10 sons
even though they had already been killed. Each son is denoted by the Hebrew
word “es,” a superfluous word, which refers to another individual to be
hanged in the future. (According to the Ramban, any change from the usual way
or writing words alludes to a hidden meaning. Rashi also notes, at the birth of
Kayin and Hevel, that the word “es”
indicated another child [a twin or triplet] being born with them.)
In addition, three of the sons’ names contain small letters (tav,
shin, zayin), whose numerical value is 5707, the Hebrew year that
corresponds to 1946, the year the 10 hangings at Nuremberg occurred. Divine
providence was no doubt at work to associate the Nuremberg hangings with the Megillah
hangings. Out of the 23 criminals on trial, 11 were selected for hanging.
But two hours before their execution, Hermann Goering, who authorized the
development and implementation of the Final Solution, managed to commit suicide
in his jail cell, leaving the 10 remaining to be publicly hung.
One Notorious Convict
Among the Final Solution criminals selected for hanging was Julius
Streicher, the notorious Nazi propagandist who created the Jewish caricatures
for the German populace to vilify. As editor of the Nazi weekly Der
Strumer for over two decades, he depicted Jews as vermin – short,
dark, and conniving – to be exterminated. This was opposed to his allegedly
tall, blond, and racially superior German audience. Ironically, anthropological
studies have long disproved Nazi racial theories; it shows that approximately
25% of European Jews were blond and blue eyed. Ironically, most of the
notorious Nazi leaders were short, dark, and dumpy, the very “inferior” racial
characteristics with which they sought to stigmatize Jews. The people the Nazis
deemed to be the most racially “pure” were the Danes. Ironically, they and
their king set the lone example of protecting their Jews resistance from the
Nazis. As the Nazis targeted Danish Jewry for Auschwitz, Danish authorities
managed to ship most of their Jews to safety in neutral Sweden.
In 1938, Streicher wrote an article, “The Poisonous Mushroom,”
which prepared German youth to annihilate Jewry. In 1939, before Hitler invaded
Russia, Streicher called for a “punitive expedition” to “exterminate root and
branch” the country’s Jews. Interestingly, Streicher had written an article in Der
Stumer called “Der Purimfest,” way back in May, 1924,
showing his awareness of Jewish holidays and customs. This article early in his
career would parallel Hashem’s vengeance at his career’s end, his execution at
Nuremberg.
Streicher was convicted as an accessory to murder, his conviction
stating that he “incited murder and extermination.” Streicher indeed
acknowledged his execution’s connection to Purim. Just before his hanging at the gallows with
the noose tied around his neck and with burning hatred in his eyes, he shouted,
“Purimfest 1946!” Dr. Moshe Katz’s book notes that the hangings were no doubt
Divine retribution from the Megillah given that American military
tribunals typically carried out death sentences through firing squad or
electric chairs. Hanging was a truly uncommon execution. Finally, the Nazis’
conviction and hanging would take place on Hoshana Rabba, the day when the
final din (judgment) is complete.
A Jewish Prosecutor
In May 2017, Leslie Stahl produced a CBS documentary for the
show 60 Minutes interviewing then-97-year-old Benjamin Ferencz, the
last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials. As one of the primary
prosecutors at Nuremberg, Ferencz, who was Jewish, had been reassigned from the
Normandy front after a brief return home to get married. Although he never
wanted to set foot in Germany again, he was enlisted by General Telford Taylor,
in charge of the Nuremberg prosecution, to help prosecute the Nazi war
criminals, especially those carrying out the Final Solution.
Ferencz’ job was to discover evidence for murder – not for the
concentration camps but, rather, for the over one million innocent civilians killed
by secret SS units called Einsatzgruppen (action groups) during the Nazi
Eastern campaign. Without willing witnesses or releasable documentation from
the Soviet-occupied Eastern Front, evidence seemed scant to try the captured
culprits.
It was the discovery of a trove of documents in the ruins of the
former German Foreign Ministry that gave Ferencz his impetus. Ferencz had
stumbled upon reports sent back to headquarters by the Einsatzgruppen, totaling
over 3,000 soldier-murderers. Their job had been to follow the German army as
it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and to murder Communists, gypsies, and
especially Jews. These documents contained orders signed by these captured
Nazis to exterminate the Jewish people wherever and whenever they were found.
There were also orderly reports sent from the Eastern Front confirming the
implementation of their genocide. It would be these accused Nazi war criminals’
own correspondence with the Einsatzgruppen that would incriminate and convict
them, and it was the Divine will to use a Jewish prosecutor (whose nieces and
nephews actually live in our Baltimore community) to pursue justice for these
Final Solution criminals.
Lessons Learned
As we look back at the Nuremberg trial convictions, we can learn
lessons relevant for today. Streicher’s “Purimfest 1946” outburst debunks the
theory espoused by many, including assimilated Jews, that anti-Semitism is
about ignorance. While many Jews are ignorant of Judaism, our Amalekite enemies
show how well versed in Judaism they really are. Adolph Eichmann, the lead Nazi
to implement the Final Solution, managed to escape Nuremberg justice until his
capture in Argentina and prosecution in Israel 16 years later. He boasted at
his trial about how he once studied with a Berlin “rabbi.” As a German spy for
the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, he was sent to Haifa to report on
British-ruled Palestine. There he learned Hebrew and Yiddish, and his fluency
in Israeli Hebrew made him quite aware of the Tel Aviv trial proceedings.
One of my Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim chavrusas told me
about his grandfather’s concentration camp internment; he testified that the
Nazis deliberately and sadistically prepared feasts for their starving victim
prisoners to partake of on two days per year: Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av. They
understood the depravity and mockery of making plentiful food available only on
these days. Streicher’s Purimfest expression, too, showed that he understood
the Purim replay he would experience at his execution.
The war against the Jewish people is continual and repetitive. It
is not from ignorance but from clear awareness. Our enemies are more than aware
of our Divine chosenness and use their knowledge to manipulate us to their
advantage. Thus, they befriend us when it suits their interests. (See the
episode with the Turkish president, below.) And when they wish to destroy us,
they also use their knowledge of our Torah culture. (Rabbi Beryl Wein notes
that for the first Bolshevik politburo, Lenin appointed three yeshiva
“graduates,” two with semicha, to
impose communism on Russia and its Jews.)
It is with this knowledge that Hamas provides for the next
generation of terrorists by providing Hebrew language study in their Gaza
schools, and that Iran launches Hebrew language radio programming directed at
Israel. Last month, Hamas backer and Islamicist, Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, in a bid to reconcile with Israel in order to negotiate a
Mediterranean oil pipeline thru Turkey, hosted a meeting with rabbinic figures
from Islamic countries, flying them in to Ankara at government expense. At the
conference, he called for the upgrading of relations with Israel and phoned
Israeli President Herzog and invited him for an official visit to Turkey. Like
Achashveirosh, who initially consulted with the chachamim regarding
what to do about Vashti’s public disobedience, the world leaders accept that
our Jewish leadership is through our rabbis and thus court them for their own
ends.
Last fall, Iran sent their chief rabbi to the U.S. to woo U.S.
Jews to support the Biden administration’s nuclear deal. Today’s Iranian
President Raisi, with whom the Biden administration seeks to negotiate a
nuclear deal, has been deemed a war criminal even by the anti-Israel United
Nations. He murdered tens of thousands of his own people in a 1988 mass slaying
of political prisoners who allegedly refused to recant their “apostasy.”
Despite his record, world powers ignore his past and enlist him to secure a new
nuclear agreement. While the agreement will ostensibly prevent it from
producing nuclear weapons, actually, it will enable it to eventually produce
such weapons, which would provide the means for Iran to carry out its publicly
declared goal of destroying its prime target, Israel.
As we celebrate Purim each year, we must acknowledge that Hashem’s
war against Amalek is fought in every generation. The players differ, but the
Purim script is the same. With the recollection of the Nuremberg trials, and as
the world experiences an uptick of anti-Semitic attacks through individuals,
terrorist organizations, and nation states, let us take this Purim to
acknowledge that our salvation ultimately lies with Hashem. It is He Who will
eventually mete out the justice of Purim to those who, acting as Amalek, seek
our destruction.
