Gallery 7: Holocaust, 1939-1944
“All . . . Jews who perished at the hands of the evil ones . . .are martyrs, even those who had not been forced to deny their Jewish faith,” wrote RabbiRabbireligious leader of a Jewish congregation who is qualified to resolve issues on the basis of Halakhah. A rabbi heads the Jewish court (Hebrew: bet din, Yiddish: bezdin), teaches Torah, performs marriages, and certifies that foods conform to the requirements of kashrut. Szymon Huberband, a member of Oyneg Shabes, the secret Warsaw ghetto archive. Diaries written by Jews trapped in the Warsaw ghetto reveal their struggle to follow their religion. The Germans demolished synagoguesSynagogue(Yiddish: shul) – house of prayer. Traditionally, men and women sit in separate sections., desecrated cemeteries, and forbade kosherKashrutlaws of ritual purity relating to food, which prohibit eating certain animals and the mixing of milk and meat, and that prescribe how meat is to be slaughtered and prepared. These laws are based on the biblical book of Leviticus. Food that is fit to eat, according to these laws, is kosher. slaughter. Religious life moved underground. The Germans also ordered Jewish converts to Christianity to move to the ghetto. They attended the two Catholic churches in the ghetto.