Language:
English
Year of publication:
1993
Titel der Quelle:
Shofar; an Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
12,1 (1993) 69-92
Keywords:
Jewish children in the Holocaust
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
Jews
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Martyrdom Judaism
;
Jewish women in the Holocaust
Abstract:
Discusses the letter purportedly written by the teacher of 92 girls of the Beth Jacob school in Krakow in August 1942, stating that they had all decided to commit suicide rather than be taken to a German soldiers' brothel. The letter was sent, via Switzerland, to Meir Schenkolewsky in New York, where it was made public. Although the letter inspired some writers and religious thinkers, it has been widely rejected by historians, who doubt its historicity and tend to see in it a "pious fraud." Nevertheless, the letter is an impressive document, compiled, most probably, by a witness of the Nazi Holocaust in Poland, and may be regarded as a response of a religious Jew to the tragedy of European Jewry. Its spirit shows reconciliation with God at the time of the greatest ordeal, sublimation of Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of God's name), and emphasis on the value of a pure and religious life. Pp. 91-92 contain a facsimile of the letter (written in Judeo-German, in Latin script).
Note:
Appeared also in "What Have We Learned?" (1993) and in his "Shoah; the Paradigmatic Genocide" (1994).
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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