7 - A theology of resistance as liberation in the death camps

Summary

I discovered Edith Stein and Regina Jonas as the culmination of my journey to still the heart palpitations and cold sweats caused by my nightmares of the Holocaust. Along the way, I discovered a book, Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, which had one story, “Jew, Go Back to the Grave,” which speaks to me even today. This story shows a further example of crossing over and a double-take as integral to stories of spiritual resistance and liberation. It is the story of Zvi, the sixteen-year-old son of Reb Michalowsky, who survived a mass execution organized by the Einsatzgruppen and carried out by local Lithuanians. After the execution, Zvi miraculously managed to crawl out of a mass grave of hundreds of dead and dying bodies. He was naked, with blood dripping down him, and went to seek help among the local Christians:

Near the forest lived a widow whom Zvi knew too. He decided to knock on her door. The old widow opened the door. She was holding in her hand a small, burning piece of wood. “Let me in!” begged Zvi. “Jew, go back to the grave at the old cemetery!” She chased Zvi away with the burning piece of wood as if exorcising an evil spirit, a dybbuk.