(Israelnationalnews.com) Moshe approached his grandfather who was resting on a recliner in the living room. “Grandpa, my Hebrew school teacher wants me to ask you for a Chanukah story. He heard that you were in the Nazi work camps during the Holocaust and thought that maybe you can tell us what Chanukah was like then.”
“No way,” said his grandfather gruffly, “do you think I have nothing to do but tell children stories?” and he turned his back on Moshe. “Moshe, you know your grandfather doesn’t like to talk about the Holocaust,” said his mother quietly. “Come into the kitchen and eat your supper now.”
Moshe and the other children were at the table when Grandfather joined them. “Put some butter on your corn,” Mother was saying to Shoshana. “It’s got too many calories,” said the pre-teen ager. “I don’t like butter,” declared four year old Shlomi. “I only like it on bread,” said Moshe. “Butter,” mumbled Grandfather, “butter. I’ll tell you a story about butter--butter and Chanukah in the camps.”
A sudden silence reigned. Their grandfather rarely spoke about his experience in Europe during the War. Even Mother stopped puttering around the kitchen and came over to listen.
“We were in a work camp, inside the ‘lager’ (concentration camp, ed.)”, he began. “I was maybe twenty, twenty one years old. The Nazis worked us to the bone. It was cold and wet and we didn’t have proper clothes. We dug ditches every day and if we didn’t meet their quota requirements they’d beat us pitilessly. Life was very, very hard.” You could hear a pin drop around the supper table.
“There was a young man with us, a Yeshiva student. They’d cut off his sidelocks, but he tried to keep all the Jewish laws. I wasn’t so religious then— but I couldn’t get over the dedication of that fellow, Yossel was his name.”
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