c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

(RNS)-I always look forward to the Passover Seder and to the stories, prayers, foods and songs of this festive family meal. But when Passover begins on Wednesday evening (April 3), I will be looking back.

The year is 1943 and two very different Passover observances are taking place, one in Pennsylvania, the other in Poland. And my memories are saturated with sorrow and with joy.

I am a little boy again, visiting my grandparents’ home above their clothing store in Pittsburgh with my mother, my father and my brother. We have just arrived from Virginia, where my father serves in the U.S. Army and we are eager to celebrate the Seder with our extended family.

World War II is raging. Three of my mother’s brothers and most of her male cousins are on military duty far from Pittsburgh. Several are in the Pacific or in England preparing for the invasion of France. But my absent relatives are with us in spirit because my grandmother has lovingly placed their pictures, all in Army uniforms, throughout the dining room.

I remember, too, that my grandparents’ bathtub is filled with Lake Erie whitefish, used in the preparation of gefilte fish, a Passover delicacy. These days we get fine gefilte fish from a supermarket, but what packaged product can compete with fresh fish swimming in a bathtub?

At Passover, my brother and I are allowed to stay up past midnight in order to participate in the Seder rituals, including the requirement to drink four cups of wine during the long evening.

And despite the war and the absence of many family members, the Seder remains joyful. After all, we commemorate the first liberation of our people, and on that April night 53 years ago, we were certain Jews would be liberated once more-this time from the evil Hitler.

Even though that Seder is indelibly etched in my memory, my heart is filled with longing. I want to go back and tell everyone again how much I love them. But sadly, I and a cousin are the only ones still alive who attended that wonder-filled family gathering so long ago.

That same night in Warsaw, another kind of Seder was taking place.

Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, brutal anti-Jewish actions had intensified, and by April 1943 the Jews of Poland were totally cut off from the outside world. They were forcibly imprisoned within ghettos complete with walls and guards.

Disease and death were rampant in the ghetto. But the Jews did not die quickly enough for General Jurgen Stroop, the SS Commander in Warsaw. To accelerate mass murder, Stroop decided to”liquidate”the Warsaw Ghetto and its residents. What better moment to attack than the first night of Passover when the doomed Jews gathered together to celebrate the Seder?

Stroop sent SS units into the ghetto to kill the Jews. It was not easy because the Germans faced armed resistance. Homemade grenades, mines, and Molotov cocktails greeted the Germans, and the youthful Jewish fighters held out for nearly six weeks until the Nazis’ superior military might finally crushed them.

I would like to go back to Warsaw and tell the Jewish fighters that their struggle was not in vain, but would enter the annals of history. I would tell the fighters that after the uprising, Stroop falsely boasted to his superiors in Berlin:”The ghetto is no more!” He was wrong.

The few who survived the uprising eventually went to Israel and organized their own kibbutz community. And millions of people have visited the Warsaw ghetto, paying tribute to the brave Jews who fought the elite SS.

I cannot go back to those two Passover observances. But at this year’s Seder, the child I was and the man I am today will remember Warsaw and Pittsburgh. We will remember the bitter and the sweet, our sorrow and our great joy.

MJP END RUDIN