The Gurs Haggadah: Passover in Perdition - Bella Gutterman, Naomi Morgenstern Ed.

The Gurs Detention Camp in southwestern

France was the testing ground for thousands of Jews seeking to pit the inhumanity of war against their belief in God and themselves. Here, in 1941, the inmates decided to hold a Seder on Passover, the Holiday of Freedom, in order to declare their own freedom from the terror of oppression.

On Passover, the rabbi, like Moses on Mt. Sinai, stood high upon a platform in the center of the camp. His eloquent words reawakened that moment of national pride which the Vichy Government and the Nazis had sought to steal from them. Suddenly, the stench of the camp dissipated, the misery around them faded, and the prisoners became a whole people again, a link in the unbroken chain of Jewish suffering and renewal.

Replete with photographs, and featuring a facsimile of the actual Haggaddah recreated from memory and used in the camp, THE GURS HAGGADAH sheds light on a little known camp where, despite the stresses and sub-human condi-tions, the people enriched their own lives by organizing both religious and cultural activities. It is a poignant tribute to the unwavering spirit of the Jewish people.

Yad Vashem publishing2003, hardcover