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“Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore
As we all steel ourselves for the long night ahead with the world in such need it’s good to remember —
The song of the nightingale.
Are you like a nightingale who sings to those who live in the darkness?
I first learned of nightingales at a Bar Mitzvah my son attended while in middle school.
Marsha and I were were invited to the dinner after the service and had the good fortune of being seated next to “Uncle Herman,” an older man with a thin, taut face and piercing hazel eyes.
Uncle Herman had a:
- ferociously sharp intellect,
- remarkable memory,
- unbelievable story.
It was my first conversation with a survivor of the Holocaust.
My own introduction to this horrific event came in 1960 when my parents encouraged us to watch the televised trial of Adolph Eichman, the Nazi architect and implementer of Hitler’s so-called “final solution.”
It was a jarring experience.
I was 12 years old. My memory of that trial has stayed with me a lifetime. And here I was, seated next to a man who had experienced the Holocaust when he was a 12-year-old boy.
How unimaginable was that!
After learning a little of his background I asked Herman how he ended up in America.
It was then he told me his incredible story.
It began in the concentration camp at Dachau, then moved to a life on the run.
Although well into his 80’s, Herman’s memory was vivid, filled with rich detail.
What stood out for me were his stories of the brave people who had helped him along the way.
He called them his nightingales.
He said he was just a kid in Germany when the Nazis began rounding up people for relocation into camps spread across the region.
When, one night, they came for his family, he suspected he might never see his home again.
He never did.
He spent months at Dachau while, one by one, members of his family were carted off, never to be seen again.
He said his only solace came at night when he would listen to a nightingale sing outside the bunkhouse and imagined it to be his mother — singing to him at his bedside a traditional Jewish blessing.
May God bless you and protect you.
May God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May God lift up His face to you and grant you peace.
It was in repeating this blessing that he got through his days and nights.
He knew after a few months his end was near, so he took to plotting an escape.
An opportunity came one night when the nightingale’s song was interrupted by the rumblings of a truck entering the camp with a cargo of new internees.
It was then he made his move.
He quickly dressed and scurried out of the bunkhouse, crawled underneath the truck and attached himself to the frame rails — the long, steel beams that ran the length of the truck.
He held on for dear life.
Then, after interminable minutes, the truck lunged forward and soon he was out of the camp.
For the next three years he was on the run.
- Germany
- Switzerland
- France
- Italy
- Israel
Always finding benevolent men and women to feed, shelter and protect him.
He called them his nightingales.
With this memory he went silent and muttered something under his breath.
I later found out it was the Mi Sheberach, a prayer for the gentiles who helped the European Jews in the war.
The Righteous Among the Nations:
May the One who blessed our ancestors bless them, who stood as a shield for the persecuted. May they be granted strength, peace, and the knowledge that they have fulfilled the highest commandment:
There are many immigrants on the run today, fleeing all manner of cruelty — in need of nightingales willing to provide them help and safety.
The Righteous Among the Nations
May we be counted among them.
Just a thought…
Pat
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