Korets (Poland, now Ukraine) was captured by the Germans in the summer of 1941. In the aktionen that took place in the summer of 1941 and spring of 1942, more than 2,600 Jews were murdered, leaving only about 1,000 Jews in the ghetto.
On Rosh Hashanah of 1942, the Jews prayed at the Shoemakers' Synagogue. It was the only synagogue remaining standing [...] I will never forget those two days of Rosh Hashanah. The tefillot were accompanied by the heart-rending weeping of men and women. All the Jews of the ghetto were present. Even the secular Jews prayed with great kavana [fervor]. Everyone felt that the only help that could be expected would be help from God. The most difficult moments were in the reciting of the kaddish. All the mitpalelim [worshippers] recited the kaddish in unison; there was no one present who did not have someone to say the kaddish for.
From The Book of Korets, Korets Landsmanshaft in Israel, p. 71.
Holocaust survivor Rabbi Naftali Stern served as the chief chazzan in the city of Satmar for many years. With the German occupation, he was deported to Auschwitz with his entire family. After the selektion he was sent to forced labor in the camp at Wolfsberg. As Rosh Hashanah approached, he realized that the texts of the tefillot were not readily available. Somehow, in exchange for valuable bread rations, he managed to obtain a torn wrapping from a sack of cement. He quickly jotted down the words of the tefillot on them from memory, just one week before the holy day.
I wrote this from memory in an effort to make as few mistakes as possible, because I remember the prayers as a ba'al tefillah who prayed for many years… For forty-three years the handwritten machzor [High Holyday prayer book] was in the machzor I prayed from after the war. On Rosh Hashanah, I would take it out and place it before me. I know that it has already begun to disintegrate, because I wrote it in pencil on the paper from a sack of brown cement I bought in exchange for bread rations.”
Holocaust survivor Rabbi Naftali Stern served as the chief chazzan in the city of Satmar for many years. With the German occupation, he was deported to Auschwitz with his entire family. After the selektion he was sent to forced labor in the camp at Wolfsberg. As Rosh Hashanah approached, he realized that the texts of the tefillot were not readily available. Somehow, in exchange for valuable bread rations, he managed to obtain a torn wrapping from a sack of cement. He quickly jotted down the words of the tefillot on them from memory, just one week before the holy day.
I wrote this from memory in an effort to make as few mistakes as possible, because I remember the prayers as a ba'al tefillah who prayed for many years… For forty-three years the handwritten machzor [High Holyday prayer book] was in the machzor I prayed from after the war. On Rosh Hashanah, I would take it out and place it before me. I know that it has already begun to disintegrate, because I wrote it in pencil on the paper from a sack of brown cement I bought in exchange for bread rations.
