Kol Nidrei has a profound hold on Jews, well beyond what one would expect from the legalistic formula annulling vows. As Yom Kippur approaches, I like to reread a memoir written jointly by a husband and wife who survived the Shoah through different paths, each posing as Christians. Norman Salsitz, a yeshiva bocher with payot and kapote, changed his name, enlisted in the Polish army and rose in its ranks. Manya (Amalie) Petranker was born in Munich and raised in Poland, spoke perfect German and Polish, and posed as an Aryan Pole.
In Against All Odds, the couple recount their precarious meeting in Poland, soon after the country was liberated. It was still dangerous to be openly Jewish, and both continued to conceal their identities. In late 1944, while en route to Krakow, Salsitz’s unit took shelter for a night in an abandoned flour mill that was once owned by a Jewish family. The soldiers scoured the premises for souvenirs and came upon a Victrola record player and a stack of vinyl records. The men began to play the records, mostly classical pieces and popular Polish songs.
“But then,” Salsitz recollects, “someone put a record on that in an instant penetrated to my very core. It was the Kol Nidrei, the sacred prayer of the Day of Atonement. I was stunned; it had been years since I had heard this mournful, awe-inspiring prayer.” Instantly, his mood changed. The familiar and haunting melody was restorative. It reconnected the poseur to who he really was. The Polish soldiers in his unit didn’t like the recording, however, and wanted to toss it in the trash. To explain his attachment to it, he told them that it was an “ancient Castillian aria” from a classical Spanish opera. “This came to mind, I think, because Kol Nidre was in fact created in Spain by the Marranos,” he reflected.
Soon after, Salsitz’s unit moved on and entered Krakow. There, he first encountered the woman who would later become his wife. Beautiful, blonde and educated, with perfect command of German, Polish, English and other languages, Petranker was in charge of the staff of the factory that Salsitz’s unit was commandeering. He took her for a Nazi.
Salsitz was troubled by his response to this beautiful woman. He was both strongly attracted to her and repelled by what he believed her to be. Petranker sensed that one of the other men in the unit was Jewish and signaled to him that she was, as well. Salsitz did not believe her. He suspected that she was a wily anti-Semitic spy and decided to test her. He commanded her to say something in Hebrew. In her oral testimony to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, she recollects saying, “ata hamor gadol” – you are a big fool. Still not convinced, Salsitz accused her of learning Hebrew so she could identify Jews to the Nazis. Pushing further, he demanded that she tell him when we recite Kol Nidrei. That was the turning point for both of them.
“When he asked me about Kol Nidrei, I understood he’s Jewish, too. Excited, with tears in my eyes, I said to him, ‘you, too?’” she recalled.
It seems particularly appropriate that through their shared memory of Kol Nidrei, the two impostors revealed themselves and re-owned who they were. Although its origins date back as early as the eighth century, many Jews associate Kol Nidrei, and the undoing of vows, with forced Jewish conversions to Christianity, especially the Spanish Inquisition.
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Salsitz and Petranker’s story reminds us of the multiple levels on which we experience ritual and liturgy. We may be moved by language, transported by melody, touched by community, linked to history, thrust into our deepest self – and beyond ourself.
