[Photo taken by my grandfather, on the day of liberation, Nordhausen Concentration Camp, 12 April 1945.]
“On the twenty-third of Iyar they attached the community of Worms… Those who remained in their homes were set upon by the steppe-wolves who pillaged men, women, and infants, children and old people… The enemy devoured the children of Israel with open maw.
“Seven day later, on the New Moon of Sivan– the very day on which the Children of Israel arrived at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah–those Jews who were still in the court of the bishop were subject to great anguish. The enemy dealt them the same cruelty as the first group and put them to the sword. The Jews, inspired by the valor of their brethren, similarly chose to be slain in order to sanctify the Name before the eyes of all, and exposed their throats for their heads to be severed for the glory of the Creator. There were also those who took their own lives, thus fulfilling the verse: ‘The mother was dashed in pieces with her children.’ [Hosea 10:14]”
– from CHRONICLE OF SOLOMON BAR SIMSON, c. 1140 (describing the massacres of Jewish communities in the Rhineland in 1096, by participants in the First Crusade, 849 years before the liberation of the Nazi death camps, and the end to the Twentieth-Century genocide of European Jewry.)
“O Earth, cover not their blood, and let there be no resting place for our cries! May the Lord, our God, grant us revenge: ‘Let the avenging of Thy servants’ spilt blood be made known among the nations in our sight’ [Ps. 79:10], speedily, for the sake of Thy Great Name which we bear. Let all creatures know and understand their iniquity and guilt for that which they have done to us. Accord unto them as they have accorded unto us.
“Then will they comprehend, understand, and take to heart, that in folly they have cast our bodies to the ground, and for falsehood have they slain our saints; that they have spilled the blood of righteous women because of a putrid corpse, and over the teachings of an agitator and misleader have they shed the blood of sucklings; that his teachings are folly and they they do not know their Creator, nor walk on a virtuous path or an upright way; that they were not wise and did not take to heart Who it is that made the ocean and the dry land; and that in all their actions they were fools and simpletons: good sense forsook them, and they place their trust in folly, neither recognizing nor declaring the Name of the living God, King of the Universe, Who is Eternal and Everlasting.”
– from CHRONICLE OF SOLOMON BAR SIMSON, c. 1140