The Gurs Haggadah: Passover in Perdition »

Reveals how the inmates of the Gurs Concentration Camp, in France, continued to live a religious and spiritual life despite the everyday hardships and terrors. Includes a facsimile of the hand written Haggadah used by the inmates to celebrate Passover, the Holiday of Freedom. A section is devoted to the life of the rabbi who helped the inmates survive the rigors of the camp.

Judy Chernak - Children's Literature

Less well known than the concentration and extermination camps of Europe are detention camps such as Gurs, in France near its Spanish border. Although mass killings were not carried in these camps, mass deaths did occur from the familiar scourges of hunger, disease, overwork and brutality. Nevertheless, in these horrendous circumstances, the Gurs Camp was a center of culture and art by and for its mostly Jewish inhabitants. Encouraged to observe their religion by their captors as a way of "dampening their feelings of resentment and frustration," the inmates set up services, concerts, art exhibits and the ultimate experience: A complete Passover Seder in the Jewish year 5701, or 1941. For this occasion, the book of the Order of the Seder, the Haggadah, was hand written on stencils with a sharpened stone from memory by the resident rabbi, Yehudah Ansbacher, then sent into the city to be duplicated. Reprinted in its entirety in this book, the Haggadah includes only one mistake, and its last pages of songs are typed in Roman characters rather than hand-written in Hebrew because time ran out as the holiday approached. Reading this book is a memorable experience of participation in the courageous resilience of the humans who suffered under most desperate circumstances while yet observing their deepest spiritual feelings. Artwork, done by camp inmates, most of whom perished later at Auschwitz, is included. 2003, Devora Publishing and Yad Vashem, Ages 12 up.