The Gurs Haggadah
Passover In Perdition
Edited
by Bella Gutterman and Naomi Morgenstern
How do you live a “normal” life in a Concentration Camp?
The Gurs Camp (technically called a “detention” camp) in southwestern
France was the testing ground for thousands of Jews attempting
to pit their belief in God and themselves against the inhumanity
of war. 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.
Replete with photographs, and featuring a facsimile of the actual
Haggadah 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 conditions, the people enriched
their own lives by organizing both religious and cultural activities
while suffering under the yoke of Nazi brutality.
Bella Gutterman is the Director of Publications
for Yad Vashem, the oldest and probably most well known Holocaust
Museum in the world. Both she and Naomi Morgenstern
have edited this moving testimonial to those who did not survive
the rigors of Gurs or the death camps many were eventually sent
to.
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