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A Moment in History, Like Sheep to the Slaughter
BY MOSHE KATZ
CEO
ISRAELI KRAV INTERNATIONAL
November 21, 2024, Israel
Let us look at a moment in history, let us pause for a moment and return to the past and relive a moment. Let us return to Auschwitz, that dreaded place that lives in my nightmares, where the crematorium are still working night and day, in a race against time to burn the Jews, a place where much of my family spent time in hell.
Let us return to August 1943.
But first a little Biblical lesson, to gain some concepts.
Critics of the Jewish people will often say, why did you go to the death camps like sheep to the slaughter. Most people don't really know what they are saying, don't understand the reference, the source, and do not really know anything about history. Ignorance is more common than knowledge.
First, the Jews did not go on the whole like sheep to the slaughter. In Israel the Holocaust Memorial Day is called, "The Day of Holocaust and Bravery" for there were resistance movements in every community, in every ghetto and even in the death camps. I discuss this in my book, "Israel: A Nation of Warriors". (see below, bottom of page)
The term sheep to the slaughter appears in the Bible, The Torah, in Isaiah Chapter 53, verse 7.
"He (the nation of Israel) was oppressed...as a lamb which is brought to the slaughter..."
Isaiah 53 is part of a broader picture. In the original Hebrew texts, there are no chapter divisions, chapter 53 is actually a continuation of the prophecy which begins at 52:13. These chapters are part of Isaiah's "Messages of Consolation", which tell of the restoration of Israel to a position of prominence and a vindication of their status as God's chosen people. In chapter 52, for example, Israel is described as "oppressed without cause" (verse 4) and "taken away". Israel in the singular is called God's servant throughout Isaiah.
While this is a general prophecy, we can certainly see its application in the time of the Holocaust..Israel is "Despised and rejected of men" (53:3), oppressed without cause, taken away. Certainly sounds like what happened during World War Two. Perhaps that is why Abba Kovner chose these words.
Who was Abba Kovner? That is a name I grew up, the legendary, heroic Jewish partisan, the man of words and actions, and later on one of those who survived and testified against our arch enemy Adolf Eichman.
Abba Kovner, a Jewish poet born in Russia in 1918, went to high school in Vilna, and was able to flee with some of his friends and find shelter outside the city. In August 1941, the Nazis created two ghettos in Vilna, a city in Lithuania with a large Jewish population. Vilna, the city of Jewish scholars, often called the Jerusalem of Europe.
During the Fall of 1941, the Nazis began to execute Jews from the Vilna Ghetto in the Ponary Forest, which became the murder site of approximately 7,000 Jews from the ghetto and the surrounding area. In order for the Nazis to deceive the Jews as they were taken from Vilna to Ponary, they were told that they were going to a labor camp. In December 1941, it became clear to many Jews in the Vilna Ghetto that the Nazis were planning a full annihilation. Many people in Vilna, especially the youth activists, began to speak about resistance, including Kovner and his friends. They recognized that what was happening: the Nazis planned to kill all the Jews in Europe.
On January 1, 1942, at a meeting of Zionist youth, Kovner read his Ghetto Manifesto, a treatise urging Jews to rise up and fight against the Nazis. Here, Kovner pleads with his fellow Jews to recognize that they will be killed in Ponary and not, as they were told, made to work:
They Shall Not Take Us Like Sheep to the Slaughter!
Jewish youth do not be led astray. Of the 80,000 Jews in the “Jerusalem of Lithuania” [Vilna] only 20,000 have remained. Before our eyes they tore from us our parents, our brothers and sisters. Where are the hundreds of men who were taken away for work by the Lithuanian “snatchers”? Where are the naked women and children who were taken from us in the night of terror of the provokatzia?
Where are the Jews [who were taken away on] the Day of Atonement?
Where are our brothers from the second ghetto?
All those who were taken away from the ghetto never came back.
All the roads of the Gestapo lead to Ponary.
And Ponary is death!
Doubters! Cast off all illusions. Your children, your husbands, and your wives are no longer alive.
Ponary is not a camp—all are shot there.
Hitler aims to destroy all the Jews of Europe. The Jews of Lithuania are fated to be the first in line.
Let us not go as sheep to slaughter!
It is true that we are weak and defenseless, but resistance is the only reply to the enemy!
Brothers! It is better to fall as free fighters than to live by the grace of the murderers.
Resist! To the last breath.
January 1, 1942, Vilna Ghetto.
Thus, we see that the phrase Sheep to the slaughter was used in the negative, i.e. we will not be taken like sheep to the slaughter, we shall fight back, and they did. Sadly, this phrase was used against us after the war to imply that the Jews did not fight back, and are in way, partially to blame for their own demise. How cruel!
And now we go back to 1941. The Nazis were a clever bunch, oh yes, they were. Do you think you would have outsmarted them? Do you think you would have fared any better than the Jews? I don't think so. Recent history in the free world shows us quite clearly how easily the masses are duped, and this is in an era where information is easy to come by, but let us go back in time, it is now 1943.
In Czechoslovakia the Nazis have created a model ghetto, for propaganda purposes. They make movies, they fool the Red Cross, they fool the entire world. And yes they fooled the Jews as well. In fact, Jews paid bribes to be sent to the model ghetto, Theresienstadt. But now it was time to kill us all, and Adolf Eichman had a plan. He permitted 4,000 Czech Jews to leave Theresienstadt in family groups, and they could take their luggage. It did not look like a group being led to the slaughter, but there were of course. For 6 months they were kept in a family camp in Birkenau, part of the Auschwitz complex. They were only several hundred meters from the gas chambers, but they did not know the whole truth, they held out hope. They were treated reasonably well and were encouraged to write letters to send to friends and tell them of the good conditions. But soon they learned the truth. At the last moment the Jews were told to write more letters, and to postdate them, so that they could be sent out after their death, telling their relatives of how well they were being treated. (when they would already have been dead). But the Jews fought back. Yes, this was a moment, a brief moment of glory, the kind that most people do not know about. "In the basement dressing rooms of the crematorium, some fought armed guards with their bare hands and entered the gas chambers with bleeding wounds and broken bones. Philip Müller, a survivor of the Sonderkommando, has testified that they died singing the Czech national anthem and "Hatikva", (the Hope, eventually the Israeli national anthem). (The Holocaust, Nora levin, page 489).
And now we are back, it is 2024, and I just wanted to share with you a brief moment in history, a moment when some young people decided that they would not go like sheep to the slaughter, that they would fight back with whatever they had. I remember them all and keep them close to my heart, always.
Remember, Don't be a victim!
Moshe Katz, 7th dan Black Belt, Israeli Krav Maga. Certified by Wingate Institute. Member Black Belt hall of fame, USA and Europe.
Understand the Israeli Fighting Mentality - Israel a Nation of Warriors by Moshe Katz
What is the cultural background of Krav Maga? What makes it unique? What makes the Israeli military so effective? Why are Israeli security systems used all over the world?
What are the Biblical origins of Krav Maga and who was the first Krav Maga instructor?
What weapons and military strategies did our Biblical ancestors use?
How has Krav Maga developed in Israel and what are its goals?
All that and more in this unique book.
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