Jots & Tittles

Torah Tales

Lost Torah scrolls are to be the subject of two separate documentary films that, in different ways, will tell the story of Jewish suffering and endurance in the Holocaust.

One concerns a six-year quest to regain Torah scrolls and other religious artifacts from the remains of a synagogue in Oświęcim in southern Poland—the location of the concentration camp Auschwitz. It began in 1998 in the Israeli town of Ramat Hasharon, when shopkeeper Yeshayahu Yarod, an Oświęcim native and Auschwitz survivor, learned that Yariv Nornberg, a 23-year-old Israeli army soldier, was making a pilgrimage to Poland. He recalled to Nornberg how he had witnessed synagogue leaders burying the items in 1939 before the synagogue was burned by Nazis —an account corroborated by other Oświęcim survivors.

Since that day Nornberg has been using his spare time to obtain the permission and funding necessary to excavate the site. He was joined in the project by Israeli filmmaker Yahaly Gat, who is documenting the story. (It is not yet known when the documentary will be released.) Funding from private and institutional donors—and $30,000 of their own money—finally enabled an excavation, led by a Polish archaeologist, to get underway in late May. Already several priceless menorahs and candelabra have been recovered.