It wasn’t so long ago that Jews were being taken, day by day, to Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, as the Germans called it. There, they were murdered—gassed, shot, buried alive. Unspeakable horrors. It’s difficult to even think about, let alone speak about.
And yet, as these horrors unfolded, the local Polish population often stood by. They watched as our brothers and sisters, Acheinu Bnei Yisrael, were marched in. They observed silently. Some joked. Some sang. And the trains kept coming.
Sometimes those trains, packed with the holiest neshamos, sat unmoved for hours, baking in the sun.
I’ve stood many times in the Umschlagplatz, the infamous site of deportation. The platform where the trains arrived and left, taking hundreds of thousands to their deaths.
But one time, just once, something extraordinary happened.
A young man named Rav Azriel Dovid stood on one of those trains. He knew he had minutes left to live before he would be marched to the gas chambers. But in those final moments, he began to sing. He composed a melody, a niggun, on the spot. His soul yearned to lift others, to offer strength, to give hope.
He sang, and others joined him. First in his train car. Then the next car. And the next. The song spread like fire—not just in voice, but in spirit. Hundreds began to sing.
Rav Azriel Dovid then turned to those around him and said: “This melody will be the hope of every Jew. Whoever risks their life to jump from this train and bring this song to the great Rebbe of Modzitz—I promise them half of my portion in the World to Come.”
Two young men jumped. One did not survive. The other made it.
He arrived—on the night of Yom Kippur—at the home of the Modzitzer Rebbe. He shared the entire story. He described how the melody spread across the train, how it resonated across Poland, Hungary, Vienna—everywhere Jews were suffering and dying. And then he said: “Rebbe, I was sent to sing the melody for you.”
And he sang:
“Ani Ma’amin.”
“I believe.”
The Ani Ma’amin, a melody that became world-famous. It spread across the Jewish world, not through telephone or radio, but by the fire of Jewish soul, passed from heart to heart, word to word, tear to tear.
The Rebbe stood before his congregation and declared: “Tonight, there will be no drasha. No words. We will only sing this melody.”
And they sang. All night long.
And to this very day, their hallowed voices are still ringing.
