Tonight begins the first night of Passover. Whether you host or attend a traditional seder or simply raise a glass of wine, we encourage you to really reflect on the theme of freedom.
Living in L.A., it’s something many of us take for granted. When the Friday school bell rings, our kids shout, “I’m free!” We say the same on three-day weekends. In a country that was founded on religious freedom, that gives us the right to free speech and so much more, most of us have never known a time when we haven’t been free. It is important, then, that we celebrate Passover each year and remember how our ancestors were once slaves in Egypt.
It is fitting that tonight is also the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Just three years earlier, in 1940, more than 400,000 Jews of Warsaw and neighboring Polish towns were ordered by the Germans to move into a ghetto that cut them off from the rest of the city. Not only were ghetto residents crowded with an average of more than seven people sharing a room, they were starving, cold and susceptible to disease — let’s face it, they were enslaved. More than 20% died in the first year and a half. Then, during the summer of 1942, there were mass deportations of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka extermination camp. Those who protested were murdered in the ghetto.
In response, and to fight this form of slavery, resistance organizations and underground groups planned a rebellion. As Germans continued to round up residents for deportations in October 1942 and January 1943, they were met by ghetto residents armed with pistols. Disorienting the troops enough to keep them from liquidating the ghetto, the Jews bought themselves time to organize, construct bunkers and shelters, and prepare for a larger uprising.
On April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover, SS officers and German police entered an abandoned Warsaw Ghetto. All of the residents were in hiding. The uprising began and the Jewish forces managed to take out some of the German police. Though thousands of Jews were killed in the ghetto and nearly all the rest were deported to camps, a few small but mighty groups and individual snipers remained, fighting the Germans for nearly a month more.
The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto fought for a freedom that most of them would never see. To some extent, they probably knew that. But, on the eve of Passover, so much bitterness already on their lips, freedom had to be front and center on their minds.
So, tonight, when we talk about Pharoah and Egypt, when we taste those bitter herbs and reflect on our freedom, we should also remember those Warsaw Ghetto residents. We should remember their bravery and thank them for fighting for their freedom — and for all of the generations of Jews yet to come.
