An earnest "good morning" saved this jew from the gas chamber.

By Ben Kamin

It is told:  A rabbi lived in the Polish village of Danzig as the storm clouds began to bring
in the Nazis in the late 1930s.  These days, when there is so much hate freely tossed
around, any day is a good day to reflect on human behavior.

 It was the rabbi’s custom to take a daily morning walk in the village and to greet every
person he met.  At the outskirts of the town, he would greet a rather unfriendly
Polish Volksdeutche (an ethnic German) named Muller. 

“Gutmorgen, Herr Muller,” the rabbi would declare.  “Gutmorgen, Herr

Rabbiner,” would come the reply.  This happened every day, until the war and the
genocide of Jews devoured Europe.  Herr Muller donned an S.S. uniform and the rabbi,
like almost every single Polish Jew, would be engulfed by the night.  The fact is that the
rabbi lost every member of his family in the death camp of Treblinka, and eventually
wound up being deported to Auschwitz.

Now the rabbi was herded off the ghastly cattle train and, wearing a striped uniform, his
head and beard shaven and his eyes sick with starvation and disease, he stood in the
selection line.  It was morning. 

A man wearing white gloves and a crisp uniform sat at a desk and pointed each Jew in a
direction: “Right! Left, left, left!”  Right was life, left was immediate death.  The rabbi
drew near the table, and saw the S.S. officer who did not look up momentarily. 

Gathering all his remaining strength and courage, the rabbi said: “Gutmorgen, Herr
Muller.”  The officer looked up.  A faint smile of recognition was visible under the cap
adorned with skull and bones.  “Gutmorgen, Herr Rabbiner.”  The hand went up and
pointed—right. The rabbi lived to tell the story.

This is a most exceptional case, obviously.  But it tells us that when a human face and a
human voice intervene in the relentless cavalcade of hate, then we will more likely live
together.  We will never share the same theologies, and we will never overcome our
dangerous insecurities—our need to conquer and subdue.  But we will always share our
humanity. 

As Rabbi Hillel (who inspired Jesus) wrote in the Talmud, “In a place where there are no
human beings, you be a human being.”
Image: The notorious ‘Jude’ badge reintroduced by the Nazis that Jews were required to
wear throughout the European continent.

Ben Kamin is one of America's best known rabbis, a multicultural spiritualist, NYT Op-
ed contributor and author of seven books, including his latest, "NOTHING LIKE
SUNSHINE: A Story in the Aftermath of the MLK Assassination."  He is a
regular ShareWIK.com columnist. To find out more about Ben, go
to: www.benkamin.com

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