All exhibit items 17 items

All items in this exhibit.

2.
  • Seder ritual of remembrance : for the six million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis and for the heroes of the ghettos uprisings / issued by Seder Ritual Committee.

Curatorial Notes:
  • “On this night of the [Passover] Seder we remember with reverence and love the six million[] of our people…who perished at the hands of a tyrant more wicked than the Pharaoh who enslaved our fathers in Egypt.” This pamphlet was meant to be inserted into the traditional Passover Haggadah. Its text memorializes the Warsaw ghetto uprising, which it notes occurred on Passover. It compares those who fought in Warsaw to Judah the Maccabee, the military leader of the successful Jewish uprising against the ancient Greeks celebrated on Hanukkah. This short text therefore connects three examples of Jewish resistance, those of Passover, Hanukkah, and the Warsaw ghetto.
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3.
  • הגדה של פסח.
  • Hagadah shel Pesaḥ.

Curatorial Notes:
  • This non-traditional Haggadah integrates the information about the events of the Holocaust into its text. It characterizes Europe as “one great house of slavery,” and lauds Jewish fighters who took up arms and fought back: “In the darkness of cellars and thickets of forests our hands learned to take up arms, kill enemies...and rejoice over all the evil killed, over every wrecked carriage and over every ruined train...”
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4.
  • הגדה די היטליר / נסים בן שמעון.
  • Hagadah dy Hyṭlyr / Nisim ben Shimʻon.

Curatorial Notes:
  • “Wicked Hitler enslaved us and the Allied Forces rescued us with a great and mighty outstretched arm. Had the Brits not come, nor the Yanks, we would not have been saved…” (Trans. by Adi and Jonnie Schnytzer). Written in Morocco during the war, it is jarring to see the word “Hitler” in Hebrew – ​​היטליר – splashed on the cover of a Haggadah. The Judeo-Arabic text follows the structure of a traditional Haggadah, but tells the story of the war up to 1943, focusing on North Africa. It employs colorful language to laud the Allies and mock the Germans, its publication therefore an act of bravery and activism as the war still raged.
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5.
  • The battle of the Warsaw ghetto, by Sh. Mendelsohn.

Curatorial Notes:
  • This early account of the Warsaw ghetto uprising provides details about the Holocaust, while it was still occurring, including references to gas chambers at Treblinka. This document’s existence disproves the notion that the world did not know the extent of Nazi crimes while they were happening. Its wide publication describing these crimes – this edition published in Shanghai a year after it was published in New York – illustrates the breadth of Jewish activism in response to Nazi oppression.
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6.
  • הגדה של פסח תש"ד.
  • Hagadah Shel Pesach 5704.

Curatorial Notes:
  • “We are dining together, Jewish soldiers from all over the diaspora. Our hearts are celebrating [Passover], but our hearts are also agitated. Our hearts are agitated because Egypt is not yet finished with Israel. Because the whole world is our Egypt.” Thousands of Jews from British Mandate Palestine volunteered to serve with the British Army in a “Jewish Brigade” during the Italian Campaign during the Second World War. This Haggadah was written and used by members of that brigade during the Allied advance into Italy. It combines the traditional text with references to the battles these Jewish soldiers were then fighting. The text metaphorically compares Egyptian slavery to the Nazi destruction of European Jews.
Subject:

7.
  • הגדה של פסח.
  • Hagadah Shel Pesaḥ.

Curatorial Notes:
  • This illustrated Haggadah was published by Jewish soldiers who volunteered to fight with the British. It includes the traditional Haggadah text along with supplementary readings. It calls for revenge against the Nazis, comparing them to the Biblical Amalekites, who attacked the Israelites after the Exodus. Parts of this Haggadah are specifically reserved for recitation by women, making it a rare source that documents the role of women in Jewish resistance during the war.
Subject:

8.
  • Under sentence of death.

Curatorial Notes:
  • This 1942 activist pamphlet illustrates what Jews in Britain knew about the Holocaust as it was unfolding (and before it was called the Holocaust). It warns explicitly that millions are in danger of extermination, and provides details about deportation from ghettos in cattle cars to what it calls “special camps” where most are murdered. It also calls on Allied and neutral governments to take immediate action to rescue the Jews in their darkest hour.
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9.
  • In ancient Egypt and present-day Germany : a Passover sermon / by the Chief Rabbi (J.H. Hertz).

Curatorial Notes:
  • This sermon is given only weeks after Hitler came to power in 1933. Rabbi Hertz compares the plight of German Jews to the ancient Israelite slaves in Egypt. He vigorously calls upon Britain to fight against this Jewish oppression, illustrating that even in these earliest days of the Nazi era, Jewish activists were fighting for the relief of their fellow Jews.
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