Shabbat Prayer

It was 1934, a period of sorrow and hardship. The earth was frozen over. The Germans would throw a grenade to soften the earth, and then force us, young women and girls, to dig the ditches, two and three meters deep into the ground. Every Shabbat (Judaism’s day of rest) morning, two girls would stand vigil to warn us when the S.S. guards (protective squad) would approach. We didn’t want to work on the holy Shabbat. We sang Shabbat songs and prayers, we told each other stories of ancient and not-so-ancient Jewish heroes, we drew strength from one another.
I remember one Friday night. I was sitting with my two nieces on a thin pile of straw, resting from the backbreaking labor in a secretive barn on the roadside. We were in the middle of a death march. As the sun dipped below the horizon, I suddenly remembered that it was Shabbat. …show more content…
We felt mesmerized by the words. They reminded us of bygone days, and we allowed ourselves to become enveloped in the sweet memories that those words evoked.
Suddenly, the Blockalteste (block leader), who had been sitting in her room behind the wall we shared, burst upon our small group huddled together in song and hurled a vicious slap in my face. Before I could get my bearings, another violent blow landed on my other cheek.
“You are still praying?” she asked. Her face was crimsoned, contorted from fury, her eyes