I told him, “Yankele, the reason that you were left alive is because you were the black sheep. Your brothers were tzaddikim, your father was a tzaddik. They didn't suffer. All it took was ten minutes. They got off the train in Auschwitz, got on the line to the left, went to the gas chambers, and in ten minutes it was all over. They didn't suffer. They went straight to Gan Eden, to the highest level. You suffered five years in gehinom. In the camps, one worse than the next. Deprivation, starvation, you had nothing, no food, no warm clothing, you froze. You had gornischt. You suffered. You’re not a survivor. You’re a victim. Hitler got you. And Hashem tried to wake you up. But you never got woken up. I feel terrible for you. You missed the boat. You’re not the lucky one. Do you have Yiddishe nachas from your kinder? You don't have Yiddishe nachas. (He had one son who was a UPI reporter.) So, what are you, Yankel. Big deal! You have nothing. And you're a nothing. And your brothers? They’re sitting in Gan Eden.”
“And do you know the saddest thing about this? You're my biggest proof to Hashem.”
“What? There's no Hashem!”
“You're my biggest proof to Hashem.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you ever try to take your life in the camps?”
His eyes blinked and he had a far-off look. And then he said, “As a matter of fact yes.”
“What happened?”
“Many times, while I was in the camps, when a person couldn’t take it anymore and he wanted to take his life. He ran over to the electrified fence and he grabbed onto it with his hands. Many times you would see people stuck to the fence. And I did that a few times.”
“So, what happened?”
“I had a goyishe mazel. Whenever I tried, the electricity was off. My mazel. What could I do, I just fell down on the floor. Gornischt.”
“How many times?”
“Three times.”
“Three times, and you think that was an accident?” And when else did you see Hashem?
“I was once in the field and they were digging with sticks when a big truck came. The driver said whoever wants to rest can climb into the truck and rest.
“We knew it was all a ploy. I was a Zyklon B truck. You walked up to the truck and they put you into the back, the driver turned on the motor and, in a few minutes, everybody was dead. I threw down my stick, and said, that’s it, I’m going. I walked toward the truck. The kapo, the worst of the worst, this was the kapo of Auschwitz. He was known as the guy who killed his own father with his bare hands. The guy was evil personified. The guy didn’t know what the word rachmanus meant. And this guy, you know what he did? He walked over to me and he said, ‘Du shoteh vos du bist. You fool! You tipesh [idiot].’ He picked me up like a sack of potatoes and threw me over a bush. I landed on my head and I blacked out. When I came back to myself the truck was gone. Then he said to me, ‘If you ever do that again, I'll rip you apart limb by limb and I’ll kill you personally. Don’t you ever give your life up!’ ‘But I can’t handle it anymore.’ ‘What do you mean you can't handle it anymore?’ ‘But I can't.’ So he said, ‘Come to my barrack tonight after work.’
“That night I went over to his barrack. Now remember, this guy just liked killing people. So I come in and he said, ‘What happened?’ I said, ‘I’m starving. I’m wiped out, I’m gone, I’m finished.’ Then he said, ‘All right. From now on I going to give you extra food so you can have some strength.’
“This guy kept me alive. This sadist, this rosha, kept me alive!”
“Wow!” I said. “That's like Hitler feeding you. No, that’s not right. He was Jewish. But he was very far away from Yiddishkeit.”
“You know, I never thought about it like that.”
“Did you ever meet up with this guy?”
“Yeah. After the war. I was in Germany and was traveling in a trolley car, and a strange thing happened. I was sitting with my hand out the window, enjoying the evening, it was very lovely air. Suddenly we came to a square and there was a huge amount of people there and they were screaming something. I listened carefully and I heard them scream that guy’s name. I decided to get off the trolley and see what was going on. The guy was in the middle and there was a crowd of Yidden screaming at him; they wanted to rip him to pieces. But there were military police around him protecting him. I was a little guy, so I pushed my way into the middle, and suddenly his eyes locked with mine. Then this kapo turned to the police and said, ‘See that guy, grab him, he's my witness.’
“They grabbed me and they pulled us out of the crowd and took us to the police station. They turned to me and asked, ‘What's the story with this guy?’
“’All I know are the stories about this guy. But I can just testify to what he did for me. He saved my life.’
“And because of that, they let him go.’”
So, he saved his life. “So,” I said, “you don't think that's Hashem? You’re living proof there's Hashem. You tried to die numerous times and He didn’t let you. And look at this rosha who saved you. And you happened to meet up with him after the war and you saved him. What were the chances you were going to meet this guy?”
“What are you again?”
“A Litzvak,” I said.
“You mean a Lutvak.”
“No, I'm a Litvak.”
“We call them Lutvakers.”
“Did you ever meet one before?”
“Sure, in the camps. It was a Sunday and we weren’t working that day. And this guy walks into the barracks talking Yiddish with a funny accent. And he asked ‘Ven ken da Gemara? Who here knows how to learn Gemara? Who knows how to learn here?’ Most of the guys ignored him. He came over to me, ‘Do you know how to learn?’ I said ‘Yes.’ ‘So come outside with me.’ So, I went outside with him. We sat on the ground and he said, ‘I must tell over to somebody this shtikel Torah that I’m planning to say in Shomayim. And I need you to hear it. I want to hear your haskamoh. Give me a haskamoh that it’s a good peshat.’ For a half hour, the guy told over to me a shtikel Torah. A half hour. Then he said to me, ‘Dos is gut, oder nischt gut?’ I told him, ‘Es is gut.’ He put his hands on his face and said, שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד and fell over and died. That's the only Litvak he met.”
“I'm number two. Yankel, and I'm going to wake you up.”
And he did teshuva. He started to learn with me every night. He started coming to davening, he put on tefillin. Became shomer Shabbos.
A person has to know, Hashem is always there. No matter where you are. Whatever you're going through. Hashem is there, Hashem is with you (R’ Eliezer Parkoff)
