Shavuot in Buchenwald
(Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
As the Jewish people prepare to celebrate Shavuot – the remembrance of God’s giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, which this year begins at sundown on Tuesday – we bring you a photo and story of a Shavuot service that occurred 69 years ago.
As World War II drew to a close, and as the Allies made their way through Nazi Germany, scenes of the war’s destruction were commonplace. But few sites held such horrors as the Buchenwald concentration camp. American soldiers liberated the thousands of Jews and other prisoners who were still alive – many of them barely – and one American, in particular, tried to give these people back their humanity.
Rabbi Herschel Schacter was a U.S. Army chaplain, the first to enter and help liberate Buchenwald on April 11, 1945. Encountering hundreds of bodies, the stench of smoke, and sights even the hardened veteran could never have imagined, Rabbi Schacter remained at Buchenwald for months after its liberation, ministering to prisoners and helping repatriate them. The photo above shows the Shavuot service Rabbi Schacter conducted for the camp’s survivors in May of 1945 – before this, the rabbi had also performed a Passover service, as the prisoners had not been able to celebrate that holy day when it occurred.