Einsatzkommando

My cousin Stuart and his childhood friends who grew up on the rough side of Chicago are part of a group which meet once a year. Stuart's mother set my parents up. My father, fresh from Poland and the war, needed a green card and my mother needed to escape my grandmother Rose. Another story.

Anyway, I ran into one of those childhood friends when I was having breakfast with Libby at our local diner. 6 degrees of separation. Ira, a sports journalist. He told us the story about last year's key speaker. He was a survivor from Schindler's List and spoke about his experiences and how he and many others were able to survive the inexplicable horrors of the camps. Two of the ways were a strong faith in God. The other was telling each other jokes. This was one of them.

During World War II there was a special Nazi mobile killing squad called the "Einsatzkommando." Their job was to go from ghetto to ghetto, shitetl to shitetl exterminating as many Jews they could. One day, one of the Nazis got bored and decided to play a game. He grabbed the first Jew he found. Held a gun to his head and said,"Guess which one of my eyes is glass and I will let you live." His glass eye was an example of exquisite workmanship. A marvel to behold. No one had ever been able to recognize which one was real and which wasn't. The Jew looked at the left eye. He looked at the right. He returned to the left. Took one more look at the right. And then said "It's the left one." Stunned, the Nazi asked "How did you know?" "Because," said the Jew "your left eye was the only one which had a glimmer of humanity."

Though I am quite sure that my dad would have laughed out loud at this joke, I don't think my mom would have followed suit. But rather with indomitable style and grace, her eyes would have widened with amazement and an angelic smile would have lingered on her beautiful lips for the rest of the day.

(c) 2010