A rare volume of the Gemara printed before World War II and found unscathed in a historic Munich beer hall after the Holocaust was given to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum on Wednesday by the family of President Isaac Herzog.
The Gemara Pesachim has been in the family’s possession for the last eight decades. It will be permanently displayed at the museum in Yerushalayim.
The Bürgerbräukeller was where Adolf Hitler launched the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, and where he announced the re-establishment of the Nazi Party in February 1925. In 1939, the beer hall was the scene of an attempted assassination of Hitler and other Nazi leaders by Georg Elser.
“The tractate’s journey embodies, in many ways, the story of a family, my family, but above all, it tells the story of a nation and the story of a people,” Herzog said at Yad Vashem on Wednesday. “A people who rose from ashes and built a home. Not just any home, but one with strong roots that run deeper than any disaster, and whose branches, though well-known, continue to grow, bear fruit and climb ever higher.
“This is a story of destruction and rebirth; of mourning and rebuilding; of darkness and light; of redemption and freedom,” he added.
Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan said, “By including this rare artifact in the Holocaust History Museum we can illuminate the vibrant tapestry of Jewish life in pre-Holocaust Europe and the subsequent horrors.
“Its unveiling, just before Jews around the world gather at their Seder tables to recount the Exodus from Egypt and our emergence as a nation, is especially poignant. As we fulfill the timeless commandment to remember the past, we affirm the enduring perseverance of the Jewish people throughout the ages,” Dayan said. JNS
And no one has any idea of how these items got there? Another effort of myth-nation building?