Schindler's Minyan

[ShuutokuTentei]

Schindler’s Minyan

The seat is hard, the air is cool, I and the congregants eagerly
wait in nervous anticipation. Surrounding me is much less than
operatic, but much more than a minyan. As I twist and squirm to find
the least modicum of comfort, I cannot help but wonder the fortune of
my vantage to be in direct eye contact with this gentle man of years.
Strangely the Menorah, exact center above and behind him, remains
unlit as he begins to speak of his life. I could not help but feel
unsure if the Menorah should be lit signifying his miraculous
survival, or dark, as it is, signifying the pain, horror, and
incredibility of the story he now shares, but for so many reasons
could easily choose to fore go. Yet, in a still calm voice and almost
expressionless face does he begin.
“I am Leon Cooper, and I was on Schindler’s list.” He offers no
trite introduction, but moves to the insolence of the time. Overnight
his life moves from the transgressions of youth, to the immediacy of
adulthood, each waking moment being caught in between the two. As
generations of his family were rounded up by the Nazi’s, and while
they contemplated sinister plans for them, his thoughts were of
freedom and youth. As they loaded his grandfather into a wagon
feigning compassion of his age, did he realize instead of turning
toward the railway station, they turned away. That was the last time
he saw his grandfather.
As the Nazi’s unfolded their plan, their minds were of a singular
theme, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Each person, each family
member, was scrutinized and their feet set upon different paths.
Tragically, his mother and sisters path were different than he and his
fathers. He and his father were granted life, but within hours, his
mother and sisters were dead. His days were filled with regimented
tours of slave labor, constant fear and reprisal, for an unconscious
glance, or mistaken hand movement. His commandant a cruel merciless
man, for whim and folly, set the dogs upon his work detail, his
fellows throat ripped from his body.
Death, was common, almost too, yet at the end of the day he had
his father, to remind him of his youth, making his life bearable.
Rumors and accusations were rampant, he not knowing the truth from a
lie, because to the Nazi’s it did not matter. As he stood in front of
the gallows in request repose along with his fellow prisoners, he
watched as a sixteen year old boy begged not to be hanged. When the
rope broke, seemingly before the boy hit the ground, myriads of boots
were pummeling his youthful body. The thirty year old man who was to
follow this spectacle of belligerence and hate, pulled a hidden razor
blade from his clothes and slit his own wrists. His time with his
father was not to be. In an act of senseless injustice and further
brutality, his father was executed along with the other men in his
party. As with the other examples of mans inhumanity to man, they too
were accused of the invented and ridiculous.
He was now alone, and although he did not speak of God’s
intervention, in my eyes it had to be. He was chosen to work for
Oskar Schindler. Life as he put it was better, but even a prisoner in
a gilded cage is still a prisoner. A prisoner cannot run from the
allied bombs, however innocent they are. A prisoner cannot exempt
themselves from the ravages of typhus, for which he contracted, though
divinely unjust. Even with liberation at hand, he questioned his
longevity. With a polite emptiness, he said “I survived because I was
at the right place, at the right time. Then, as now, I have no reason
to count myself as a hero, I am just a man.”
Although the congregation was granted question of this most
unique man, the question I most wanted to ask remained behind my
silent lips. In anxiety I wanted to speak, but felt to invade this
mans private feelings an offense not worthy of my status. Then, as
question after question taxed Mr. Coopers mature years, the question
most on everyone’s mind was finally asked. “Mr. Cooper, do you
forgive the Nazi’s for what they did?”
I would like to share with you his answer, but that would simply
be to easy. I will let you decide from your heart, and ask you to
answer the question for yourself. As I looked into Mr. Cooper’s eyes
while shaking his hand, I realized at that moment, he represented a
minyan of one man. He now speaks for the millions who have died, and
the few who still live. A responsibility almost to hard to bear.
Everyone must, you and I, ever insure the words he speaks here today
are never lost to time, that they continue to live in the hearts and
minds of all those connected to the infinite spark of God.

ShuutokuTentei
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